the "Movement"

[Toby G Levy]

Yes, Pynchon blurbed this book. Interesting that this came out the same
year as Gravity's Rainbow.

SDS by Kirkpatrick Sale out of print (used copies start at around $100)

reviewed on Amazon.Com by Jeff Leach

It quickly becomes apparent that this is the bible for anyone interested
in the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Clocking in at a whopping
700+ pages, Sale has exhaustively researched almost every aspect of this
organization and turned that research into interesting and concise
reading. His research on SDS encompasses books, the SDS archives in
Wisconsin, interviews and letters with some of the movers and shakers in
SDS, and even archives for the League of Industrial Democracy (SDS's
parent organization). The book is divided into four sections:
Reorganization, Reform, Resistance and Revolution. Within these divisions
Sale creates chapters based on the seasons, such as Summer 1965 or Fall
1967. The book covers roughly 12 years, from 1960 to 1972 (the book was
published in 1973). Sale still writes articles for such magazines as The
Nation, as well as other books, one on Robert Fulton being his most
recent. 
SDS started out as SLID, or the Student League of Industrial Democracy,
an arm of the LID mentioned above. LID was an Old Left organization made
up of cautious anti-Communist liberals/socialists. Sale details every
aspect of SDS; the formation of the group under the watchful eyes of Al
Haber and Tom Hayden, the writing of the Port Huron Statement, the
tensions between the intellectuals and actionists which resulted in the
ERAP projects (and the failure of those projects), the infusion of new
SDS members from mid-America which moved the power base from the East
Coast and radicalized the movement. Sale continues his account all the
way to the demise of SDS into two Communist factions: Weatherman and
PL-SDS. Sale knows he's telling a long tale and constantly stops along
the way for summaries and recaps of problems. The ominous appearance of
sections on the Progressive Labor Party (PL) provides a separate timeline
of this group until its infiltration and destruction of SDS in the later
1960's. 
As useful as this history is, Sale does have his limitations. He rarely
provides any look at the intellectual underpinnings of SDS, an aspect
that is critical in understanding their ideas and some of their
weaknesses. There are only a few mentions of C. Wright Mills, for
example. Mills was critical to early SDS thought and should definitely
have a place in any history of SDS (James Miller's book provides an
intellectual history of SDS). Another problem is that Sale is writing so
close to his subject. In 1973 Weather bombs are still going off and
principal members of SDS are still protesting. Sale misses out on what
the perspective of time can do for people. Finally, for a book so
exhaustive and meticulous in its approach, there is no reprint of the
Port Huron Statement to be found, not in the text or in an appendix,
which I find very surprising. 
If you are going to do any reading on SDS, let alone any research, you
must read this book, and I recommend reading it before you read any other
books on the topic. Unfortunately, it's out of print. I haven't seen a
copy available anywhere ..., but a reprint could always happen at
anytime. Highly Recommended. 
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