The New York Intellectuals Reader

by Neil Jumonville (Editor)

Overview

In the early 1930's in a small alcove at City College in New York a group of young, passionate, and politically radical students argued for hours about the finer points of Marxist doctrine, the true nature of socialism, and whether or not Stalin or Trotsky was the true heir to Lenin. These young intellectuals, including Alfred Kazin, Mary McCarthy, Hannah Arendt and Lionel Trilling among others, went on to write for and found some of the most well known political and literary journals of the 20th century. The New York Intellectuals Reader presents selections from this vibrant group of political thinkers and writers, committed to addressing the most important political, social, and cultural questions of the day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415952644
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	04/18/2007
Pages:	456
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Neil Jummonville is the William Warren Rogers Professor of History and Chairperson of the Dept. of History at Florida State University. He specializes in U.S. Intellectual History with an emphasis on post WWII liberalism and American Studies. He is the author of two previous books and is currently working with Routledge author Kevin Mattson on a book of essays on the current state of liberalism.

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

I. FINDING NATIVE GROUNDS

1. Alfred Kazin, Starting Out in the Thirties

2. Irving Howe, New York in the Thirties

3. Irving Kristol, Memoirs of a Trotskyist

4. Mary McCarthy, Philip Rahv, 1908-1973

5. Editorial Statement, Partisan Review, 1934

6. Editorial Statement," Partisan Review, 1937

7. Dwight Macdonald, I Choose the West

II. AGAINST ABSOLUTISM

8. Sidney Hook, The New Failure of Nerve

9. Hannah Arendt, Total Domination

10. Philip Rahv, The Sense and Nonsense of Whittaker Chambers

III. LIFE AND CULTURE AT MIDCENTURY

11. Meyer Schapiro, Nature of Abstract Art

12. Clement Greenberg, Avant-Garde and Kitsch

13. Dwight Macdonald, Homage to Twelve Judges

14. Lionel Trilling, Reality in America

15. Alfred Kazin, The Historian as Reporter: Edmund Wilson and the 1930s

16. Harold Rosenberg, Twilight of the Intellectuals

17. Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology in the West

18. Dwight Macdonald, Masscult & Midcult

19. Lionel Trilling, On the Teaching of Modern Literature

20. Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation

IV. THE COLD WAR

21. Paul Goodman, To Young Resisters

22. Irving Kristol, "Civil Liberties," 1952—A Study in Confusion

23. Sidney Hook and Bertrand Russell, A Foreign Policy for Survival: An Exchange

24. C. Wright Mills and Irving Howe, Intellectuals and Russia: An Exchange

V. CULTURES AND COUNTERCULTURES

OLD AND NEW LEFTS

25. Norman Podhoretz, The Know-Nothing Bohemians

26. Irving Howe, Problems in the 1960s

RACE AND ETHNICITY

27. Norman Podhoretz, My Negro Problem—And Ours

28. Nathan Glazer, Negroes & Jews: The New Challenge to Pluralism

VI. LEGACIES

LIBERALISM AND THE LEFT AFTER 1965

29. Michael Walzer, In Defense of Equality

30. Irving Howe, Socialism and Liberalism: Articles of Conciliation?

NEOCONSERVATIVISM

31. Nathan Glazer, On Being Deradicalized

32. Norman Podhoretz, Between Nixon and the New Politics

33. Irving Kristol, The Adversary Culture of Intellectuals

Editorial Reviews

"A specialist on the New York intellectuals, Jumonville provides a terrific...introduction to this important collection of several of the group's noteworthy essays. (The New York Intellectuals) sought to reach a broad audience, transcend disciplinary boundaries, and grapple with significant contemporary issues." "Recommended." -Choice

"That famous alcove at the City College of New York where, in the 1930s, students met and argued the merits of Marx, chose between Trotsky and Stalin, pondered the future of socialism, and laid the intellectual foundations for the second half of the 20th century, is restored in this remarkable collection. The names are familiar--Sidney Hook, Alfred Kazin, Irving Kristol, Hannah Arendt, Dwight Macdonald, Paul Goodman, Lionel Trilling, Clement Greenberg, Norman Podhoretz, etc.--and the subjects remain contentious and pertinent. Neil Jumonville, a historian at Florida State, provides the pertinent biographical data, and completes the definitive portrait of these remarkable essayists, to whom we are all indebted." -- Philip Terzian, The Weekly Standard, June 25, 2007 - July 2, 2007, BOOKS & ARTS Vol. 12 No. 39

"A specialist on the New York intellectuals, Jumonville provides a terrific, albeit brief introduction to thie important collection of several of the group's noteworthy essays. The public intellectuals sought to reach a broad audience, transcend disciplinary boundaries, and grapple with significant contemporary issues. ... " -- CHOICE March 2008 Vol. 45 (R.C. Cottrell, California State University)

From the Publisher