The American Radical tells the story of American democracy from the late 18th century to the present through the lives of the women and men who have fought to advance it.

"The American Radical" tells the story of American democracy from the late 18th century to the present, through the lives of the women and men who have fought to advance it. The original biographical portraits presented in this collection show how, in every period of history, Americans from various backgrounds have stood as activists, authors and artists to challenge the powerful. The editors have assembled a group of writers on the radical tradition, who introduce the movements, ideas and struggles of the revolutionaries, rebels and reformers important to the American national experience; they include independence fighters, Labourists, suffragists, socialists, feminists, pacifists, environmentalists, and campaigners for social justice and the civil rights of the oppressed.

Pontiac and Neolin, Gregory Evans Dowd
Tom Paine, Harvey J. Kaye
Fanny Wright, Lori D. Ginzberg
Sojourner Truth, Nell Irvin Painter
George Lippard, Joseph Jablonski
Abby Kelley, Dorothy Sterling
Frederick Douglass, Waldo E. Martin Jr
Walt Whitman, Robert K. Martin
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ellen Carol DuBois
Edward Bellamy, Daphne Patai
John Muir, Franklin Rosemant
Eugene V. Debs, Scott Molloy
Upton Sinclair, Greg Mitchell
Emma Goldman, Alice Wexler
William D. Haywood, Dan Georgakas
W.E.B. Du Bois, Thomas C. Holt
Isadora Duncan, Elizabeth Francis
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Rosalyn Baxandall
Arturo Giovannitti, Robert D'Attilio
John Reed, Robert A. Rosenstone
Ida B. Wells, Paula Giddings
Robert W. La Follette, R. David Myers
Ricardo Flores Magon, Juan Gomez-Quinones
Mother Jones Elliot, J. Gorn
John Dewey, Kenneth Teitelbaum and Michael W. Apple
Clarence Darrow, Joanne Pope Melish
William Z. Foster, James R. Barrett
Dorothy Day, Nancy L. Roberts
Norman Thomas, Gary Dorrien
Lewis Mumford, Paul Buhle
Clifford Odets, Norman Jenckes
Woody Guthrie, Craig A. Lockard
Ruth Fulton Benedict, Mari Jo Buhle
Carlos Bulosan, E. San Juan Jr
A.J. Muste, Staughton Lynd
Vito Marcantonio, Gerald Meyer
Paul Robeson, Lamont H. Yeakey
Ella Josephine Baker, Barbara Ransby
I.F. Stone, Eric Alterman
William Appleman Williams, Edward Rice-Maximin
Rachel Carson, Vera Norwood
Malcolm X, Michael Eric Dyson
Martin Luther King Jr, James H. Cone
Michael Harrington, Robert A. Gorman
Abbie Hoffman, Marty Jezer
Audre Lorde, Lisa Duggan.