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Over the last half-century progressives in community psychiatry have challenged the social order while addressing the needs of persons with psychiatric disorders. Recently, however, their vision and energy has faltered. A re-evaluation of the progressive position is essential, beginning with a review of its historical experience. Unfortunately, modern psychiatry has become increasingly ahistorical. Those histories that do exist reveal little about the experiences of progressive practice and tend to attack it from the right or from the left. There is a tremendous need to synthesize new socially-oriented histories of the progressive movement in community psychiatry.