The Black Book of the American Left

The Black Book of the American Left, Volume I: My Life and Times dwelt heavily on author David Horowitz’s personal journey from the hard left as a “red diaper” child of Communists to leadership in the New Left movement. We followed the anguished transitional trajectory that began with Horowitz’s reflections on the New Left’s role in America’s Vietnam defeat, and his visceral recoil from the criminal excesses of the Black Panther Party. These attacks on his settled convictions provoked profound self-interrogation, leading to an intellectual pivot away from the theories, antipathies and loyalties that had for so long defined his identity.

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On Horowitz’s New Book: Progressives – Paul Hollander

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April 22, 2014 Reviews black book of the american left, david horowitz, reviews, vol2 Jeffrey Wienir

David Horowitz is one of the rare human beings, and handful of former Sixties radicals, who made an unequivocal break with his longstanding political beliefs and commitments. Unlike many former radicals who renounced some of the questionable means used in the pursuit of their political agenda but refused to distance themselves from the purported ideals, Horowitz rejected the ideals as well. In the meantime, most of the former Sixties radicals, or even some Sixties moderates, have continued to cling nostalgically to what they consider to be admirable goals embedded in their youthful idealism and legitimated by the irresistible appeal of good intentions.

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Review: The Black Book of the American Left, Volume II by Janice Flamengo, PJ Media

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May 16, 2014 Reviews pjmedia, vol2 dashton

The first volume of David Horowitz’s nine-volume The Black Book of the American Left focused on the author’s personal journey out of the leftist faith and its community of adherents — a courageous, disorienting rejection of all he had once believed — and into a reasoned and pragmatic conservatism that has been his creed ever since. Analyzing the various forms of delusion, bad faith, and pathological self-hatred that leftism inspires and demands, the essays in that volume chronicled Horowitz’s decades-long crusade to unmask progressive fantasies to reveal their devastating real-world consequences. In documenting the monumental failures of leftist regimes and the illogic of leftist ideology, Horowitz’s writings have made a vital contribution to the conservative movement in America.

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Volume II – Progressives

by David Horowitz

Overview

All the volumes in this series of my collected writings called The Black Book of the American Left are about individuals who call themselves progressives. This volume focuses on the nature of the progressive outlook and it’s real world consequences.

The progressive label is one that its adherents wear proudly. It appeals to their amour propre, identifying them as people who are forward-looking, therefore enlightened and modern. “Progressive” fits their sense of themselves as apostles of hope and change, in fact as a species of social redeemers. Consequently, the basic premise of their politics is that “forward” is necessarily a good direction, and that a fundamental transformation of social relationships is both possible and desirable.

As an expression of this self-image, progressives commonly refer to themselves as being “on the side of history,” as though history was steadily moving towards beneficent ends. Read More

Volume III – The Great Betrayal

by David Horowitz

The Democrats’ Great Betrayal

An unprecedented treachery for which the world is paying a dear price.

by David Horowitz

Yesterday Regnery published The Great Betrayal, a book I have written to mark a watershed moment not only in the War on Terror, which is really a war against the Islamic Jihad, but a watershed moment in American history. The events and controversies chronicled in The Great Betrayal describe an unprecedented defection by a major political party from an American war in progress, and a five- year effort by that party to sabotage the war and undermine America’s troops in the field.

The Democrats’ campaign against the war in Iraq was very different from their opposition to the war in Vietnam, which came after American troops had been in the field for more than a decade and both parties had agreed on a withdrawal. In contrast, the watershed moment in Iraq came in June 2003, when the war was little more than three months old and American troops were facing a ferocious resistance from terrorist forces. Read More

Volume IV – Islamo-Fascism and the War Against the Jews

by David Horowitz

Overview

Like the previous installments of The Black Book of the American Left, this volume addresses the role progressives played in undermining the defense of Western civilization against the totalitarian forces determined to destroy it. The present volume focuses on the holy war or jihad waged by totalitarian Islamists in their quest for a global empire. It is divided into three sections, the first and third of which contain narratives of campaigns I organized to confront the growing Islamist presence on American college campuses. While these accounts describe a cultural conflict in university communities, they have implications for a parallel culture war in the society at large.

The Achilles’ heel of democratic societies, as the Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski once observed, is also their moral foundation—the principle of tolerance, which they extend even to those who want to destroy them. The Islamists understand this vulnerability and therefore have exploited it as a central strategy along with the intimidation they conduct through terror. The Islamists understand this vulnerability and therefore have exploited it as a central strategy along with the intimidation they conduct through terror. Read More

David Horowitz on Larry King speaking on Volume IV: Islamo-Fascism and the War Against the Jews.