This book chronicles the interesting, flawed and persistent phenomenon - the American Left. The book suggests that the American left actually comprises the Lyrical Left of World War I, the Old Left of the late 1920s and the 1930s, the New Left of the 1960s and now, the Academic Left. Diggins argues that however irrelevant the Left may seem in these pragmatic times, it has always embodied the ideal of hope, and sought to realize the best the country had to offer.