In this episode Jeremy takes to the lectern for a two-hour mega-episode on the New Left in the second half of the Twentieth Century (and beyond). Picking up in the 1950s, where our previous episode concluded, we chart the full emergence of the New Left in various locations on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Students for a Democratic Society, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the anti-Vietnam war movement and more. Jeremy spends time explaining the pivotal year of 1968, with its raft of political assassinations, violent disorder at the Chicago Democratic Convention, and the barricades of Paris, set alongside the work of crucial thinkers like EP Thompson and Raymond Williams.
Jeremy contests the prevailing notion that the New Left laid the groundwork for the bourgeois individualism of the 80s, showing how its focus on anti-racist, feminist, anti-authoritarian politics, along with demands for maximum democratic freedom, can be traced all the way to the Bernie Sanders movement.
Jeremy relates the politics of the New Left to a series of musical scenes, including Krautrock in Germany, proto-punk in Detroit, West Coast acid rock, Feminist post-punk, Hawkwind, the Pet Shop Boys and more.
Next episode we return to NYC for our first encounter with Larry Levan.
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Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.
Tune in, Turn on, Get Down!
Books:
Raymond Williams - The Long Revolution
Port Huron Statement, 1962
Guy Debord - The Society of the Spectacle
Raoul Vaneigem - The Revolution of Everyday Life
Eve Chiapello and Luc Boltanski - The New Spirit of Capitalism
Tracklist:
Buffy Sainte-Marie - Universal Soldier
Phil Ochs - I Ain’t Marching Anymore
The Stooges - 1969
MC5 - Kick Out The Jams
Jefferson Airplane - Volunteers
Can - Mushroom
Marvin Gaye - Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)
Hawkwind - We Took The Wrong Step Years Ago
Helen Reddy - I Am Woman
Tom Robinson Band - Glad to be Gay
T. Rex - Children of the Revolution
The Strawbs - Part of the Union
The Clash - Remote Control
The Slits - Typical Girls
Pet Shop Boys - Shopping