This is a collection of 10 articles on various progressive social movements in the United States, not only with the overall purpose of providing an overview of the particular movements but also with an eye to seeing the extent to which the movements could provide a constituency for a broader and larger progressive, or “left,” movement in the United States in the twenty-first century. John Berg, editor of the volume, tells the reader in his introduction that authors were chosen not only on the basis of their “scholarly credentials, but also for their personal involvement in the movements they write about” (p. 13). Berg assures the reader that the articles are objective, but they are not neutral, and “some show passionate commitment to their cause” (p. 13). The collection promises to be a constructive text for students of social movements, as well as useful for all those interested in rebuilding a broad-based, progressive, and left-oriented global justice movement in the United States. Unfortunately, the selections are uneven and the book as a whole does not live up to its expectations.

Berg's introduction provides a rather cursory overview of what is meant by various terms, such as “left” and “political,” and the distinction between movements, parties, and interest groups. He also briefly discusses social movement theories, but informs the reader that the book is not about theories of social movements, since theories only interpret social movements. For Berg, the real task is to change the world, and theories are only useful if they help us change the world. Unfortunately, he never returns to this point, and with no concluding chapter to ponder the implication of the 10 separate chapters on specific movements, one is left without direction to evaluate the bigger picture.

The book begins with a chapter on the global justice movement, followed by three chapters on movements based on material needs, three chapters on movements based on postmaterialist identities, and finally three chapters on altruistic movements. Ronald Hayduk's piece on the global justice movement provides a descriptive overview of the antiglobalization movement with assertions of its impact and achievements. Much of the chapter is a rather uncritical look at global exchange. Nevertheless, Hayduk does raise difficult questions for the movement, such as the acceptance of violence before September 11, and the huge challenges and obstacles to the movement's growth. He argues that the power of the global justice movement might actually rest with its ability to expose the contradictions of globalization. It is anyone's guess what this exactly will mean in the post–U.S.-Iraq war era.

Immanuel Ness's chapter on the labor movement provides a very general overview of labor unions. Ness argues the need for unions to embark on a sustained social protest movement, yet provides little if any analysis suggesting this would succeed. In fact, at one point, he argues that changes in labor law are needed to assure decent wages and working conditions for workers, yet this seems unlikely in the absence of a militant labor movement. He seems to overlook the fact that capitalists changed labor laws in a variety of ways since the late 1940s, and that those changes actually stifled organizing. The chapter on mass-membership senior interest groups by Laura Katz Olson and Frank L. Davis is one of the strongest in the book. Olson and Davis provide a sobering account of the movement of senior citizens, showing that it is a pipe dream to talk about “seniors” as a potential constituency for a progressive left movement because they are still divided by class over various policy issues, such as social security and other old-age programs. Christine Kelly's and Joel Lefkowitz's chapter is informative and one of the few that actually integrates social movement theory into its argument about the movement. But Kelly and Lefkowitz go beyond an analysis of Students United Against Sweatshops and argue that the anti-sweatshop movement could provide the model by which practical issues of better wages and working conditions for workers located not only in the United States but through-out the world can be combined with radical demands like living-wage campaigns. I think the authors overstate the point when they argue that students are challenging the logic of capital. At most, they are challenging the rate of exploitation, but not the process of exploitation.

The first of three chapters on the movements based on postmaterialist identities traces changes in Women's Action for New Direction (WAND). Although Melissa Haussman does an excellent job in applying social movement theory to the history of WAND—the fact that Helen Caldicott and WAND were and are marginal to the women's movement and any larger movement for global justice—it is unclear what difference any analysis of WAND would make for the building of a large progressive movement. Benjamin Shepard's chapter on ACT-UP shows how some of its struggle might link up with the global justice movement in fighting global drug companies. However, it is unclear if most of the activists in ACT-UP see it that way, and Shepard gives little evidence that would suggest they do. David Pfeiffer's chapter on the disability movement is both useful and interesting because it clearly shows that movement participants are unlikely to join a larger movement because they feel as though they are on their own.

The last three chapters in the book are concerned with altruistic movements. James R. Simmons and Solon J. Simmons provide an overview of who the Greens are, pointing out some of the problems with the new-age membership immersed in moralism. While pointing out problems with the strategies and ideologies, the chapter does not, however, confront the structural realities of U.S. politics and the problem of third-party politics in general. Claude E. Welch's chapter on Human Rights Watch is a detailed account of how organizations like Human Rights Watch look out well for the liberal/rights side of what is needed in democracies, and suggests that if it could extend out to union organizing rights, and other issues more “economic,” it could be a useful part of a larger progressive coalition. Like the chapter on WAND, Meredith Sarkees's chapter on the peace movement focuses on a marginal group, Voices in the Wilderness, and although it shows that there are pockets of leftism and activism in faith-based communities, they remain small and have little prospects of developing into anything much larger.

What is clearly missing in the book is some sort of a concluding chapter that discusses the implications of the various chapters for the prospects of building a large progressive movement in the twenty-first century. Some are useful for showing, for example, that seniors and the disabled are not some natural part of a bigger coalition, and that some of the groups like WAND and Voices in the Wilderness are so marginal that they cannot be the core of anything bigger, and indeed get swept aside when real insurgency develops. Much of the rest is a wish and a hope that either the Greens or labor movement should be militant, or that the global justice movement will expand. In the final analysis, Teamsters and Turtles? is a mixture of the realistic, the hopeful, and the marginal.