Given the rapid growth of the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) since the 2016 election, we were due for a rexamination of the life and thought of its principal founder Michael Harrington. Before this book came out, the only full length account of Harrington’s life and career was Maurice Isserman’s sympathetic book, The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington, from over a generation ago. In this book, Greene provides us with both an overview of Harrington’s life and career and a critique, from the left, of Harrington’s politics and philosophy. Given the fact that few younger people, even those who are DSA members, barely know who Harrington was, there was a sore need for a book of this sort. And Greene delivers in his usual lucid style.
