SOURCE: McConnell, Scott. “Resurrecting the New Left.” Commentary 84, no. 4 (October 1987): 31-8.

In the following essay, McConnell discusses The Sixties, along with other histories addressing the rise of the New Left, finding that Gitlin's account of the formation of SDS and its offshoot, the Weathermen, helps dispel some of the myths associated with those groups.

Wrapped within the current boom in 60's rock-and-roll, and within the more elusive nostalgia for a time when drugs and promiscuous sex seemed there to be enjoyed without consequence, lies a movement to bring about a resurrection of the 60's in their specifically political aspect. The movement finds more or less innocent expression in the efforts of Democratic presidential hopefuls to claim for themselves the spirit of John F. Kennedy. But there are signs of another, more radical, and possibly more consequential political recapitulation, whose spirit is caught not by the New Frontier but...