Minireview: Despite its size, this thick biography of "Mr. Socialism USA" of the '70s and '80s somehow feels incomplete and unfulfilled. Perhaps that's because Harrington's mission, program, and promise were never fulfilled themselves. It was sometimes said that Harrington would have been Prime Minister had he been born in Europe; in the United States he was a not-widely-known and now-almost-forgotten author and intellectual. Less poetically, by focusing both on Harrington's life and the movements to which he dedicated the bulk of his time and energy, Isserman must gloss over many aspects of both. Nevertheless, the book itself doesn't disappoint at all; the incompleteness I felt was a sense of larger stories to be told, coupled with some melancholy over the repeatedly dashed hopes and aspirations of Harrington's life and work. ( )