Originally appeared in the Boston Globe
The onetime president of SDS calls on liberals of his
generation to embrace an older form of patriotism
By Harvey Blume
IN 1963, Todd Gitlin was president of Students for a
Democratic Society (SDS), the main vehicle for student activism during the
'60s. Gitlin's landmark account of those years, "The Sixties: Years of Hope,
Days of Rage" (1987), along with seven other books--including his 1999
novel, "Sacrifice"--and innumerable shorter pieces, constitute engagé
writing at its best. What you get from Gitlin is the convergence of a deep
political culture with a sharp sense of urgency.
