The New York Intellectuals, Thirtieth Anniversary Edition

The New York Intellectuals, Thirtieth Anniversary Edition PDF Author: Alan M. Wald
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 146963595X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 503

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Book Description
For a generation, Alan M. Wald's The New York Intellectuals has stood as the authoritative account of an often misunderstood chapter in the history of a celebrated tradition among literary radicals in the United States. His passionate investigation of over half a century of dissident Marxist thought, Jewish internationalism, fervent political activism, and the complex art of the literary imagination is enriched by more than one hundred personal interviews, unparalleled primary research, and critical interpretations of novels and short stories depicting the inner lives of committed writers and thinkers. Wald's commanding biographical portraits of rebel outsiders who mostly became insiders retains its resonance today and includes commentary on Max Eastman, Elliot Cohen, Lionel Trilling, Sidney Hook, Tess Slesinger, Philip Rahv, Mary McCarthy, James T. Farrell, Irving Kristol, Irving Howe, Hannah Arendt, and more. With a new preface by the author that tracks the rebounding influence of these intellectuals in the era of Occupy and Bernie Sanders, this anniversary edition shows that the trajectory and ideological ordeals of the New York intellectual Left still matters today.

The New York Intellectuals, Thirtieth Anniversary Edition

The New York Intellectuals, Thirtieth Anniversary Edition PDF Author: Alan M. Wald
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 146963595X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 503

Get Book Here

Book Description
For a generation, Alan M. Wald's The New York Intellectuals has stood as the authoritative account of an often misunderstood chapter in the history of a celebrated tradition among literary radicals in the United States. His passionate investigation of over half a century of dissident Marxist thought, Jewish internationalism, fervent political activism, and the complex art of the literary imagination is enriched by more than one hundred personal interviews, unparalleled primary research, and critical interpretations of novels and short stories depicting the inner lives of committed writers and thinkers. Wald's commanding biographical portraits of rebel outsiders who mostly became insiders retains its resonance today and includes commentary on Max Eastman, Elliot Cohen, Lionel Trilling, Sidney Hook, Tess Slesinger, Philip Rahv, Mary McCarthy, James T. Farrell, Irving Kristol, Irving Howe, Hannah Arendt, and more. With a new preface by the author that tracks the rebounding influence of these intellectuals in the era of Occupy and Bernie Sanders, this anniversary edition shows that the trajectory and ideological ordeals of the New York intellectual Left still matters today.

The Rise of the New York Intellectuals

The Rise of the New York Intellectuals PDF Author: Terry A. Cooney
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description


Prodigal Sons

Prodigal Sons PDF Author: Alexander Bloom
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195051777
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
From Lionel Trilling to Irving Kristol, from Philip Rahv to Norman Podhoretz, this book offers a comprehensive look at New York intellectual life over the past half-century. Bloom traces the rise of the New York intellectuals from their origins--poor, Jewish, the children of immigrants--to their coming to prominence in our intellectual estalishment. It takes us through nearly all the crucial intellectual and political events of the last decades and behind the scenes at such important journals as Partisan Review, Commentary, and The Public Interest.

Arguing the World

Arguing the World PDF Author: Joseph Dorman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226158143
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Joseph Dorman's film Arguing the World won New York Magazine's Best New York Documentary award in 1999 as well as the Peabody Award in 1999. His work has also appeared on The Discovery Channel, CBS, and CNN, and has been nominated for two Emmy Awards. Joseph Dorman's acclaimed documentary, Arguing the World, included stunning interviews with Irving Howe, Daniel Bell, Irving Kristol, and Nathan Glazer. Now with a new preface, Dorman converted the film into this book that includes an overview of the New York Intellectuals and a chapter on the future of the public intellectual. Expertly spliced together from the film and new material, this book gives the sense that these men are still engaged in their fiery debates that targeted everything from the Depression to McCarthyism to the rise of the New Left through the Age of Reagan.

Minjian

Minjian PDF Author: Sebastian Veg
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231549407
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
Who are the new Chinese intellectuals? In the wake of the crackdown on the 1989 democracy movement and the rapid marketization of the 1990s, a novel type of grassroots intellectual emerged. Instead of harking back to the traditional role of the literati or pronouncing on democracy and modernity like 1980s public intellectuals, they derive legitimacy from their work with the vulnerable and the marginalized, often proclaiming their independence with a heavy dose of anti-elitist rhetoric. They are proudly minjian—unofficial, unaffiliated, and among the people. In this book, Sebastian Veg explores the rise of minjian intellectuals and how they have profoundly transformed China’s public culture. An intellectual history of contemporary China, Minjian documents how, amid deep structural shifts, grassroots thinker-activists began to work outside academia or policy institutions in an embryonic public sphere. Veg explores the work of amateur historians who question official accounts, independent documentarians who let ordinary people speak for themselves, and grassroots lawyers and NGO workers who spread practical knowledge. Their interventions are specific rather than universal, with a focus on concrete problems among disenfranchised populations such as victims of Maoism, migrant workers and others without residence permits, and petitioners. Drawing on careful analysis of public texts by grassroots intellectuals and the networks and publics among which they circulate, Minjian is a groundbreaking transdisciplinary exploration of crucial trends developing under the surface of contemporary Chinese society.

Renewing the Left

Renewing the Left PDF Author: Harvey M. Teres
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Teres (English, Syracuse U.) brings to life the world of New York intellectuals from the 1930s to the present, drawing lessons for progressive politics today and arguing for a reassessment of the legacy of the New York intellectuals. He examines issues such as race and gender relations, literary quality, and politics as a means to fulfill personal, spiritual, and ethical needs, and profiles various figures of New York's left-wing intellectual culture. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Responsibility of Intellectuals

The Responsibility of Intellectuals PDF Author: Noam Chomsky
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620973642
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 63

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Book Description
In one of his most famous essays, Noam Chomsky lays out the idea that intellectuals’ relative privilege imbues them with greater responsibility—one that was to be the guiding principle of his intellectual life “Chomsky is a global phenomenon. . . . He may be the most widely read American voice on foreign policy on the planet.” —The New York Times Book Review As a nineteen-year-old undergraduate in 1947, Noam Chomsky was deeply affected by articles about the responsibility of intellectuals written by Dwight Macdonald, an editor of Partisan Review and then of Politics. Twenty years later, as the Vietnam War was escalating, Chomsky turned to the question himself, noting that “intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments” and to analyze their “often hidden intentions.” Originally published in the New York Review of Books, Chomsky’s essay eviscerated the “hypocritical moralism of the past” (such as when Woodrow Wilson set out to teach Latin Americans “the art of good government”) and exposed the destructive policies in Vietnam and the role of intellectuals in justifying them. Chomsky then turns to the “war on terror” and “enhanced interrogation” of the Bush years in “The Responsibility of Intellectuals Redux,” an essay written on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. As relevant now as it was in 1967, The Responsibility of Intellectuals reminds us that “privilege yields opportunity and opportunity confers responsibilities.”

Public Intellectuals

Public Intellectuals PDF Author: Richard A. Posner
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674042271
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
In this timely book, the first comprehensive study of the modern American public intellectual--that individual who speaks to the public on issues of political or ideological moment--Richard Posner charts the decline of a venerable institution that included worthies from Socrates to John Dewey. With the rapid growth of the media in recent years, highly visible forums for discussion have multiplied, while greater academic specialization has yielded a growing number of narrowly trained scholars. Posner tracks these two trends to their inevitable intersection: a proliferation of modern academics commenting on topics outside their ken. The resulting scene--one of off-the-cuff pronouncements, erroneous predictions, and ignorant policy proposals--compares poorly with the performance of earlier public intellectuals, largely nonacademics whose erudition and breadth of knowledge were well suited to public discourse. Leveling a balanced attack on liberal and conservative pundits alike, Posner describes the styles and genres, constraints and incentives, of the activity of public intellectuals. He identifies a market for this activity--one with recognizable patterns and conventions but an absence of quality controls. And he offers modest proposals for improving the performance of this market--and the quality of public discussion in America today. This paperback edition contains a new preface and and a new epilogue.

Taking it Big

Taking it Big PDF Author: Stanley Aronowitz
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231135408
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) transformed the independent American Left in the 1940s and 1950s. Often challenging the established ideologies and approaches of fellow leftist thinkers, Mills was central to creating and developing the idea of the "public intellectual" in postwar America and laid the political foundations for the rise of the New Left in the 1960s. This book reconstructs this icon's formation and the new dimension of American political life that followed his work.

Making It

Making It PDF Author: Norman Podhoretz
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1681370808
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
A controversial memoir about American intellectual life and academia and the relationship between politics, money, and education. Norman Podhoretz, the son of Jewish immigrants, grew up in the tough Brownsville section of Brooklyn, attended Columbia University on a scholarship, and later received degrees from the Jewish Theological Seminary and Cambridge University. Making It is his blistering account of fighting his way out of Brooklyn and into, then out of, the Ivory Tower, of his military service, and finally of his induction into the ranks of what he calls “the Family,” the small group of left-wing and largely Jewish critics and writers whose opinions came to dominate and increasingly politicize the American literary scene in the fifties and sixties. It is a Balzacian story of raw talent and relentless and ruthless ambition. It is also a closely observed and in many ways still-pertinent analysis of the tense and more than a little duplicitous relationship that exists in America between intellect and imagination, money, social status, and power. The Family responded to the book with outrage, and Podhoretz soon turned no less angrily on them, becoming the fierce neoconservative he remains to this day. Fifty years after its first publication, this controversial and legendary book remains a riveting autobiography, a book that can be painfully revealing about the complex convictions and needs of a complicated man as well as a fascinating and essential document of mid-century American cultural life.