David Horowitz spent the first part of his life in the world of the Communistprogressive left a politics he inherited from his mother and father and later in the New Left as one of its founders. When the wreckage he and his comrades had created became clear to him in the mid1970s he left. Three decades of second thoughts then made him this movements principal intellectual antagonist. amp147For better or worse as Horowitz writes in the preface amp147I have been condemned to spend the rest of my days attempting to understand how the left pursues the agendas from which I have separated myself and why.amp8221When Horowitz began his odyssey the left had already escaped the political ghetto to which his parentsamp8217 generation and his own had been confined. Today it has become the dominant force in Americaamp8217s academic and media cultures electing a president and achieving a position from which it can shape Americaamp8217s future. How it achieved its present success and what that success portends are the overarching subjects of Horowitzamp8217s conservative writings. Through the unflinching focus of one singularly engaged witness the identity of a destructive movement that constantly morphs itself in order to conceal its identity and mission becomes disturbingly clear.Horowitz reflects on the years he spent at war with his own country collaborating with and confronting radical figures like Huey Newton Tom Hayden and Billy Ayers as he made his transition from what the writer Paul Berman described as the American leftamp8217s amp147most important theoristamp8221 to its most determined enemy.