Author Description

The Long Detour is an intellectually engaging overview of the history of socialism in the United States and its continuing relevance for today. Historian and journalist James Weinstein, a lifelong socialist and one-time Communist, takes readers from the movement's early years of utopian communities, though the heyday of engagement with the makers of corporate America, and into the future of our de-industrializing era. He argues that socialism, as a political movement, lost its way when Communist domination of the American left stifled social thought and diverted it into disputes over the true nature of the Soviet Union. Socialism is not dead, according to Weinstein; indeed, it is a vital force than can contribute to the growth of a political movement in the United States based on humane social principles, one that can once again play a positive role in our democratic development.