The Subversive Seventies

A thought-provoking reconsideration of how the revolutionary movements of the 1970s set the mold for today's activism. The 1970s was a decade of "subversives". Faced with various progressive and revolutionary social movements, the forces of order—politicians, law enforcement, journalists, and conservative intellectuals—saw subversives everywhere. From indigenous peasant armies and gay liberation organizations, to anti-nuclear activists and Black liberation militants, subversives challenged authority, laid siege to the established order, and undermined time-honored ways of life. Every corner of the left was fertile ground for subversive elements, which the forces of order had to root out and destroy—a project they pursued with zeal and brutality. In The Subversive Seventies, Michael Hardt sets out to show that popular understandings of the political movements of the seventies—often seen as fractious, violent, and largely...