Jack Ross is a freelance editor and independent historian in Brooklyn, New York. His work has appeared in the American Conservative, Tikkun, the Mitrailleuse, Daily Caller, Mondoweiss, and Antiwar.com. He is the author of Rabbi Outcast: Elmer Berger and American Jewish Anti-Zionism (Potomac, 2011).

“There have been books before on the history of the American Socialist Party, but none that I know of takes the story from the party’s roots in the late nineteenth century through its devolution after World War II into Michael Harrington’s Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and the proto-conservative Social Democrats USA. Ross tries to answer the difficult question of why the American Socialists never became a major party, providing an important history not only of the American left but of the right as well.”-John B. Judis, senior writer for the National Journal “Jack Ross has performed a prodigious and provocative feat of recovery and historical interpretation. In Ross’s telling, the Socialist Party of America is not just a dreary dress rehearsal for Cold War liberalism or neoconservatism but rather, at its best, a living, breathing embodiment of populist American radicalism.”-Bill Kauffman, author of Ain’t My America: The Long, Noble History of Antiwar Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialism “Not only does Jack Ross cover the history of the [Socialist Party of America] and its leading adherents, he also offers an analysis of socialism’s rise, decline, and persistence as a marginal movement in the United States that is more complete and original than that of any other scholars of the political left. . . . This history deserves the attention and respect of every reader.”-Melvyn Dubofsky, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of history and sociology at Binghamton University, SUNY, and coauthor of John L. Lewis: A Biography

• PrefaceIntroductionPart I1. The Roots of American Socialism (1876–1892)2. Populism and Beyond (1893–1900)3. The Party Is Born (1901–1904)4. The Fate of American Labor (1905–1909)5. The Triumph of Progressivism (1910–1912)6. Calm Before the Storm (1913–1916)7. The Terror (1917–1918)8. Fatal Alienation (1919–1920)Part II9. A New Hope (1921–1924)10. Changing of the Guard (1925–1929)11. Depression and Renaissance (1930–1933)12. The Two-Front Putsch (1934–1936)13. American Catalonia (1937–1940)14. Not to the Swift (1941–1948)Part III15. The Twilight of American Socialism (1949–1963)16. Out with the Old, In with the New (1964–1972)17. Social Democrats USA and the Rise of Neoconservatism18. Democratic Socialists of America and the Roots of Post–Cold War Liberalism19. Socialist Party USA and the Radical Left since 197320. After ExceptionalismAppendix A: National Officers of the Socialist PartyAppendix B: Socialist Elected Officeholders, 1897–1960Appendix C: Presidential Vote TotalsNotesBibliographyIndex

Jack Ross is a freelance editor and independent historian in Brooklyn, New York. His work has appeared in the American Conservative, Tikkun, the Mitrailleuse, Daily Caller, Mondoweiss, and Antiwar.com. He is the author of Rabbi Outcast: Elmer Berger and American Jewish Anti-Zionism (Potomac, 2011).

“There have been books before on the history of the American Socialist Party, but none that I know of takes the story from the party’s roots in the late nineteenth century through its devolution after World War II into Michael Harrington’s Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and the proto-conservative Social Democrats USA. Ross tries to answer the difficult question of why the American Socialists never became a major party, providing an important history not only of the American left but of the right as well.”-John B. Judis, senior writer for the National Journal “Jack Ross has performed a prodigious and provocative feat of recovery and historical interpretation. In Ross’s telling, the Socialist Party of America is not just a dreary dress rehearsal for Cold War liberalism or neoconservatism but rather, at its best, a living, breathing embodiment of populist American radicalism.”-Bill Kauffman, author of Ain’t My America: The Long, Noble History of Antiwar Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialism “Not only does Jack Ross cover the history of the [Socialist Party of America] and its leading adherents, he also offers an analysis of socialism’s rise, decline, and persistence as a marginal movement in the United States that is more complete and original than that of any other scholars of the political left. . . . This history deserves the attention and respect of every reader.”-Melvyn Dubofsky, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of history and sociology at Binghamton University, SUNY, and coauthor of John L. Lewis: A Biography

• PrefaceIntroductionPart I1. The Roots of American Socialism (1876–1892)2. Populism and Beyond (1893–1900)3. The Party Is Born (1901–1904)4. The Fate of American Labor (1905–1909)5. The Triumph of Progressivism (1910–1912)6. Calm Before the Storm (1913–1916)7. The Terror (1917–1918)8. Fatal Alienation (1919–1920)Part II9. A New Hope (1921–1924)10. Changing of the Guard (1925–1929)11. Depression and Renaissance (1930–1933)12. The Two-Front Putsch (1934–1936)13. American Catalonia (1937–1940)14. Not to the Swift (1941–1948)Part III15. The Twilight of American Socialism (1949–1963)16. Out with the Old, In with the New (1964–1972)17. Social Democrats USA and the Rise of Neoconservatism18. Democratic Socialists of America and the Roots of Post–Cold War Liberalism19. Socialist Party USA and the Radical Left since 197320. After ExceptionalismAppendix A: National Officers of the Socialist PartyAppendix B: Socialist Elected Officeholders, 1897–1960Appendix C: Presidential Vote TotalsNotesBibliographyIndex