ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an alternative perspective on the Western New Left (NL) as distinct from established right-wing and left-wing versions. It aims to challenge both these accepted definitions of what the NL is or was, and their view of how it developed its major problems. Movement theorists have argued in relation to the NL that its history and its theory must arise from the participants, from the movement itself. The chapter focuses on three specific aspects of the NL mainly in Britain and America. First is, the relationship of the new radicalism to an Old' Left in each changing context. Second is, the transition of the movement through several distinguishable phases of crisis – especially the evolution from nonviolence to physical or armed violence. Third is, the relation between external factors and internal transformations, especially the Vietnam War and the events and happenings of 1968.
