Event / Panel Discussion

How the Left Changed (and Can Further Change) America

Michael Kazin leads a discussion on how progressive movements have transformed the United States and what impact they continue to have.

Join us for a brown bag lunch discussion with Michael Kazin, professor of history at Georgetown University, co-editor of Dissent Magazine, and author of the recent book American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation. We'll talk about how progressive movements have transformed the United States and what impact they continue to have through Occupy Wall Street and other efforts.

American Dreamers has garnered widespread praise for its clear-eyed description of the aspirations, accomplishments, and disappointments of the American Left. Reviewing the book in The New York Times, Beverly Gage writes that "the American left has never been much good at building institutions, or getting people elected or seeing its economic programs realized. But it has been enormously effective at shifting the nation’s moral compass and expanding its sense of political possibility. The real problem for today’s left, Kazin writes, is that its members have forgotten how to think big — how to look beyond the uninspiring present to a more dazzling and egalitarian future."

Please send us an RSVP to netfa@ips-dc.org.