A New Dawn for the New Left : Liberation News Service, Montague Farm, and the Long Sixties

In the summer of 1968, with political violence on the rise in the US and new protest movements blossoming worldwide, Liberation News Service - a news agency for leftist underground media - split into warring factions, encapsulating the ambitions and tensions that were roiling the New Left. As both sides fought for control of the Movement's information infrastructure, acrimony continued to deepen, until a decisive break occurred: the organization's old guard raided their own offices and fled to Montague Farm, a commune in western Massachusetts, leaving behind a determined coterie of upstarts who remained engaged with the world of New York radical politics. Over the next decade, activists on both sides would continue to battle, not only for social justice, but for personal liberation. This lively history traces the entwined histories of Liberation News Service and Montague Farm, providing an intimate look at how New Left institutions founded on the utopian ideals of the 1960s adapted their politics to survive in the 1970s. This book examines the underground Liberation News Service and the commune Montague Farm to trace the evolution of the New Left after 1968. In the process, it extends the chronological breadth of the long Sixties, rethinks the relationship between political and cultural radicalism, and explores the relationships between diverse social movements. All over America, activists looked at the upheavals of 1968 as ushering in a new dawn for the New Left. Over the next decade, activists on both sides of the Liberation News Service split not only battled for social justice but personal liberation. The entwined histories of Liberation News Service and Montague Farm-including a daylight heist and a midnight raid, an attack on Castroite homophobia and a tower-toppling act of civil disobedience, a Con-Ed blackout and a Madison Square Garden concert series-illuminate how New Left institutions founded on the utopian ideals of the 1960s adapted their politics to survive in the 1970s