pbDaniel Soyer's history of the Liberal Party of New York State, bbiLeft in the Centeribb, shows the surprising relationship between democratic socialism and mainstream American politics.bppBeginning in 1944 and lasting until 2002, the Liberal Party offered voters an ideological seal of approval and played the role of strategic king-maker in the electoral politics of New York State. The party helped elect presidents, governors, senators, and mayors, and its platform reflected its founders' social democratic principles. In practical politics the Liberal Party's power resided in its capacity to steer votes to preferred Democrats or Republicans with a reasonable chance of victory. This uneasy balance between principle and pragmatism, which ultimately proved impossible to maintain, is at the heart of the dramatic political story presented in iLeft in the Centeri.ppThe Liberal Party, the longest-lived of New York's small parties, began as a means for anti-Communist social democrats to have