Book excerpt: "If I Had a Hammer unearths the roots of the counter-culture and political radicalism of the 60s, and shatters the myth of the 50s as a decade of deadening conformity. For the 'Old Left,' the 50s were indeed a decade of defeat and disillusionment, as Maurice Isserman demonstrates through incisive and poignant portraits of aging radicals, including Irving Howe, Norman Thomas, and A. J. Muste. But defeat also compelled a reexamination of cherished beliefs, like the myth of the revolutionary proletariat, and facing up to new political realities, like the domestic consequences of the Cold War. Old dogmas were discarded along with old dreams. Professor Isserman challenges the current notion that the radicalism of the 60s was mere psychological aberration. He also dispels a favorite illusion of the 'New Left' itself--that it was borne by immaculate conception without ties to a 'Old Left' it pointedly repudiated. Ironically, the 'New Left' drew lessons from its predecessor never intended by the 'Old Left,' while it repeated mistakes it found unforgivable in the parent it disowned. If I Had a Hammer calls into question our favored assumptions about this pregnant moment in American history." -- Book jacket