Never Stop Running: Allard Lowenstein and the Struggle to Save American Liberalism

Chafe's remarkably intimate biography of liberal activist New York Congressman Allard Lowenstein underscores this charismatic leader's relevance to the survival of liberal politics. Lowenstein, who was assassinated at age 51 by a demented ex-protege in 1980, played a pivotal role in the 1960s civil rights movement and the campaign to end the war in Vietnam. In Duke history professor Chafe's probing portrait, Lowenstein emerges as a torn individual who rebelled against his tyrannical father and controlling stepmother by fashioning the self-image of a noble crusader, while he grappled with ambivalence about his Jewish identity and, from adolescence onward, with strong homoerotic impulses. Lowenstein's divorce from Boston Brahmin Jennifer Lyman shattered his personal world, suggests Chafe, who maintains that the ultimate failure of the Democratic firebrand's political mission to change the system from within stemmed in part from inherent personality flaws, and in part from the loss of a common ground as centrifugal forces tore American society asunder. Photos. (Oct.)