More than six years after the September 11 attacks, the close friendship forged between George W. Bush and John Howard remains. But in their nations more broadly, the common purpose has withered, drained by the sense that both men have failed the moral and intellectual challenges of that day. In this powerful and provocative book, Peter Beinart offers a new liberal vision, based on principles liberals too often forget: that America's greatness cannot simply be asserted, it must be proved. That American leadership is not American empire. And that liberalism cannot merely define itself against the right, but must fervently oppose the totalitarianism that stalks the Islamic world today. Peter Beinart's The Good Fight is a passionate rejoinder to the conservatives who have ruled Washington since 9/11. Beinart argues that America can again embrace the creed that brought it greatness in the past, but only if liberals remember that democracy begins at home. Above all, it is a call for liberals to revive the spirit that once swept America, and inspired the world.

Twenty years ago the workers and peasants of Russia under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party overthrew the rule of the landlords and capitalists. When the yoke of the bourgeoisie had been cast off, the capitalists and their henchmen, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks, asserted that the end of the world had come, that without the bourgeoisie the workers would be unable to start the factories going and run the country, that the people would be doomed to hunger and barbarism until the bourgeois order was restored. The capitalists together with the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries raised Whiteguard rebellions within the country and for three years, with the direct participation of the armies of fourteen countries, they waged a counter-revolutionary war against the workers arid peasants. They did not achieve their aim. The workers and peasants of the Soviet Union, in stubborn struggle, defended their liberty and the gains of the Great October Socialist Revolution, and repelled all enemy attacks. The proletarians of the capitalist countries aided the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union in their fight against counter-revolution. In the land of the Soviets the building of socialism proceeded on an extensive scale. Twenty years ago our country was wretched and poor. The peasant went hungry; he scratched the soil with a wooden plough. Now he has become prosperous; tractors and harvester combines do the heavy work for him. Hundreds of thousands of poor folk roamed the highways looking for work; now, under socialism, there are no unemployed in our country. Thousands of new enterprises have been constructed; new railways, canals and big electric power stations have been built. Machines which previously were imported from abroad are now manufactured in the Soviet Union. Our country has become independent of capitalist countries. National oppression has been replaced by the free development of the cultural forces of each people. The Soviet people regard the future calmly and without apprehension. The Stalin Constitution of the U.S.S.R. guarantees the right to work, to rest and leisure, to education, to maintenance in old age and in case of sickness or loss of capacity to work. Life has become better, life has become more joyous. The mighty Red Army, which is of the flesh and blood of the working people of the U.S.S.R., defends the borders of the Soviet Union. What can capitalism show by comparison? Crises, idle factories, millions of unemployed, impoverishment of the workers and peasants, fascist violence that deprives the working people of every liberty, arming at a furious pace, predatory imperialist wars, a decline of culture and a decrease in the number of students, continued and intensified national and colonial oppression, gnawing fear for the future, general discontent and embitterment against the existing order on the part of the working people. The past twenty years have clearly demonstrated all the advantages of the new social order over the old, of socialism over capitalism.

Thumb through the index of almost any study of the Thatcher years -- biographical, scholarly or journalistic -- and you will come across the name of Sir Alfred Sherman. In her memoirs Lady Thatcher herself pays tribute to Sherman's 'brilliance', the 'force and clarity of his mind', his 'breadth of reading and his skills as a ruthless polemicist'. She credits him with a central role in her achievements, especially as Leader of the Opposition but also after she became Prime Minister. Born in 1919 in London's East End, until 1948 Sherman was a Communist and fought in the Spanish Civil War. But he ended up an indefatigable free-market crusader. The book describes his early relationship with Sir Keith Joseph and his own role in the formation of the Centre for Policy Studies in 1974. Sherman examines the origins and development of 'Thatcherism', but concludes that the Conservative administrations of the 1980s were, for the most part, an 'interlude' and that the post-war consensus remains largely unscathed -- 'we are back to where we started'.

Albert Goldman (1897 - 1960) was an American Trotskyist and lawyer to the labor movement. Born Albert Verblen in Chicago, he studied at Medhill High School and then the University of Cincinnati. He also studied to be a rabbi at the Hebrew Union College. In 1919, working as a tailor, he joined the Industrial Workers of the World, then the newly formed Communist Party of America the following year. Goldman went on to study at the Northwestern University Law School, graduating in 1925, and by 1926 was working for the Communist International Labor Defense. A visit to the Soviet Union made him critical of the party, and he was expelled in 1933 for Trotskyism. He then worked primarily for the Trotskyist movement, representing the Minneapolis Teamsters strikers in 1934, and Trotsky during the Dewey Commission. In 1939, he moved to New York City and worked full time for the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). In 1941, Goldman merely acted as defense counsel for the SWP members accused of violating the Smith Act, but was jailed for sixteen months alongside them. While in prison, Goldman worked with Felix Morrow to develop criticisms of the SWP and Fourth International leaderships. They claimed that predictions of a revolutionary wave after World War II had been proved incorrect, and that Stalinism, far from being destroyed (as Trotsky had predicted) had been strengthened. They also became critical of the party's organizational structures. The pair were only able to convince a small minority of the party of their positions, although this included key figures including Jean Van Heijenoort and James T. Farrell. In 1945, Goldman and Morrow proposed that the SWP should reunite with Max Shachtman's Workers Party, which had split from the SWP in 1940. Negotiations were taken up, but soon faltered, and Goldman left to join the Workers Party in 1946. Within the Workers Party, Goldman and Farrell worked closely. In 1948, they developed criticisms of its policies, claiming that the party should support the Marshall Plan and also Norman Thomas' presidential candidacy. Having come to believe that only capitalism could defeat Stalinism, they left, to join the Socialist Party of America.