American radicals have lived with and by a mischievous mythology built around the proletariat, the system, and the vanguard. That is the essence of a complex, convoluted, and clever book by Aileen S. Kraditor, professor emerita of history at Boston University. Her evidence is drawn from the speeches and statements of radicals associated with the Socialist Labor party, the Socialist party, and the Industrial Workers of the World in the years 1890-1917. Although the author ...