This is a personal history of the twentieth century as seen through
the eyes of Edith Kurzweil, author, teacher, editor of Partisan
Review, and a recent recipient of the National Medal of Humanities.
The book opens with Kurzweil early adolescence in Vienna during the
Nazi takeover. It ends with the author finding herself in the new
century. In between, she kept moving on and interrogating the world
around her. The reader follows Kurzweil on her perilous journey, at
the age of fourteen, to Belgium, through France, Spain, and
Portugal, alone with her younger brother. Her fantasies of reunion
with her parents in New York kept her going but came to naught: she
had not expected to fall from a wealthy childhood into the life of
the working-class poor, as a millinery apprentice or a diamond
cutter. Instead of entering college life, she eventually became a
conventional American housewife. Unhappy and anxious, she
anticipated the social changes in America, and returned to Europe
with her second husband and her two children. She arrived at the
beginning of the Italian miracle--its post-war revitalization. In
Milan she met many Americans as an active member of its community
and of the British-American club. After personal tragedy she
returned to New York, and only then pursued her early intellectual
ambitions. The author eventually became a professor of sociology
and quickly climbed up the academic ladder. Just as she had been as
a little girl, she still "wanted to know everything," beginning
with her study of Italian entrepreneurs and going on to European
history and French thought, to psychoanalysis and anti-Semitism.
Her early writings prompted William Phillips, co-founder and editor
of Partisan Review, to invite her into the elite circle of New York
intellectuals. She worked alongside him, first as a reader, then as
executive editor, and took over the editorship of the legendary
journal during its final period. Kurzweil's journey was one of
courage, and of emotional and intellectual growth. Full Circle will
be of interest to intellectual and cultural historians, literary
and Holocaust scholars, and American studies specialists.
General
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