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American Gandhi: A. J. Muste and the History of Radicalism in the Twentieth Century Leilah Danielson. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.
Abraham Johannes (A. J.) Muste is a significant figure of the American left who has largely been forgotten today, but, in American Gandhi, Leilah Danielson, associate professor of history at Northern Arizona University, reminds readers of Muste's many contributions to radicalism during the twentieth century. Drawing upon extensive archival research as well as interviews with Muste's family and colleagues, Danielson provides an in-depth investigation of American leftist politics during the turbulent twentieth century. In these discussions of radical sectarianism, however, Muste often seems to somewhat disappear, and the focus of the biography is certainly upon the radical's political rather than personal life. What makes Muste's political journey so fascinating is the breadth of his experience on the left. Muste was involved with Christian socialism, pacifism, labor organization, Trotskyism, nonviolence, peace and anti-nuclear protest, the Civil Rights Movement, anti-colonialism, and opposition to the Vietnam War. Muste is perhaps best known for his advocacy of nonviolence, but Danielson makes a valuable contribution by focusing upon his overlooked labor activism during the 1920s and 1930s. Danielson concludes that Muste's strength was his pragmatic approach: "grounding theory in practice and the individual in community helped to curb his messianic impulses and allowed him to remain flexible and relevant across and throughout the political and ideological shifts of the mid-twentieth century" (2).
Muste was born January 8, 1885, in The Netherlands. His working-class family migrated to the United States in 1891 and settled in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Muste was raised in the Calvinist tradition of his Dutch ancestors. Deciding to pursue a career in the ministry, Muste graduated from Hope College in Michigan, followed by enrollment at the New Brunswick Theological Seminary in New Jersey. Danielson observes that the young theologian, however, found the intellectual environment of New York City more stimulating than the seminary, and Muste embraced the Social Gospel movement and moved away from the Calvinism in which he was raised. Accepting a position at New York City's Fort Washington Collegiate Church, Muste...