New Left

New Left is an umbrella term for intellectual currents and social movements emerging in the 1950s and 1960s as an alternative to both reformist social democracy and the authoritarian socialism promoted by communist parties. While these strands, forming the “Old Left,” adhered to an economic view of social conflicts and addressed male workers as the subject of change, the New Left emphasized an international perspective on injustice, highlighted individual rights and liberties, and sought for a new historical subject. The concept of the New Left is commonly associated with students’ movements in Western Europe and North America during the late 1960s. Among scholars, however, it is undisputed that the rise of the New Left dates back to the 1950s. A broad definition includes not only ...