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Aging Political Activists Personal Narratives from the Old Left
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By David P. Shuldiner
ISBN: 0-275-95045-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-275-95045-3
312 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 2/28/1995
List Price: $117.95 (UK Sterling Price: £65.00)
Availability:
Media Type: Hardcover
Also Available: Ebook
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects: Reviews:
  • This book will be of intrest to libraries in Connecticut and to acdemic libraries for "the stories"
    —Assoc. of Jewish Libraries Newsletter
Description: Aging Political Activists is at once a series of political autobiographies, a set of personal narratives of social commitment, a model for qualitative research, and a challenge to current theory and practice in the social and behavioral sciences. It presents and examines the life stories of four individuals--close friends and former members of the Communist Party USA--revealing the ways they have developed and sustained their personal values and political outlook through a lifetime of involvement in movements for social change. Shuldiner approaches the interviews as a collaborative effort with his subjects who both describe their identities and experiences and critique the interview process, offering alternate readings of the content of their narratives or new directions for inquiry. These portraits of older activists challenge notions about the role of the personal in the development of political identity, while shifting the debate among gerontologists between "activity" versus "disengagement" in old age to a discussion of the dialectical relationship of these two aspects of human behavior throughout a lifespan.
Table of Contents:
  • Setting the Stage
  • Introduction
  • The Dialectics of Identity: Search for a Method
  • The Aging of Politics--The Politics of Aging
  • The Stories
  • "With the Feelings that I Have about the Capitalist System" (Joe: Interview One)
  • "When I Left the Party, I Left for a Number of Reasons" (Joe: Interview Two)
  • "I Would Probe Into Their Feelings About How They Missed the CP Life" (Joe: Interview Three)
  • "I Think I'm Still Looking for My Core" (Lil)
  • "I've Always Had an Individualistic Approach to Things" (Jake: Interview One)
  • "Those Influences Remain and They're a Part of My Heritage" (Jake: Interview Two)
  • "It Was an Episode, a Long and Good Episode in History, and It is Ending" (Sid)
  • Summing Things Up
  • Age of Wisdom, Age of Action: Narrative Themes and Variations
  • Conclusion
LC Card Number: 94-33258
LCC Class: HX84
Dewey Class: 335
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