View the Table of Contents.
Read the Preface.
"Sorin does a solid and convincing job of chronicling Howe's
life and times."--"The Jewish Quarterly Review"
""Irving Howe: A Life of Passionate Dissent" offers such an
intellectually detailed and conceptually animated account of Howe's
work. Sorin did an excellent job."--"Magill's Literary Annual"
"In this crisply written and well-conceived biography, Sorin
captures the essence of these commitments--one to Jewish culture,
one to political activism, and one to literary criticism. Sorin
offer[s] a compelling, informative, and balanced account of a
leading icon of the New York intellectuals."--"The Journal of
American History"
"Sorin's biography summarizes Howe's important writings and
covers his life in a carefully documented way."
-- "American Jewish World"
A New York Times aBooks for Summer Readinga selection
Winner of the 2003 National Jewish Book Award for History
"Sorin has given coherence to a complex life, showing that it
was Howe's willingness to grapple with his own contradictions that
made his intellectual journey so revealing of its place and
time."
--"Times Literary Supplement"
"Sorin portrays Howe the tough political fighter alongside the
brilliant writer and generous friend...Sorin has built a solid
portrait of the writer and critic...he does a very good job of
illuminating the relationship between politics and literature in
Howe's intellectual life, particularly the way in which his
socialism was informed by his reading of Yiddish literature."
--"New York Times Book Review"
aIn this fine biography, Gerald Sorin shows us why we need more
Irving Howes today. Sorin traces the shifts andturns in a life that
wound up creating one of America's most thoughtful leftistsa]. A
complexity of political views, a tension-ridden intellectual life
(rather than academic careerism), an ability to criticize while
remaining humane--these are things we need a lot more of today. For
reminding us of this, we have not just Irving Howe but Gerald Sorin
to thank.a
--"The Washington Post"
aWhat Sorin has accomplished in this beautifully written,
balanced and probing intellectual biography is the most complete
picture we have of Howe, a portrait of how one Jewish intellectual
and activist struggled daily to balance scholarship and politics
and the life of the mind and a life of action. . . . Sorin has ably
captured the life and passion of this most unusual man, whose
commitment to democracy is a legacy still worth cherishing.a
--"Los Angeles Times"
"Sorin skillfully captures the illuminating fire of Howe's
convictions, conflicts, and achievements. [His] deep understanding
of Howe's belief in intelligent public discourse...enables him not
only to portray a great intellectual but also to encapsulate a key
era in American politics."
--"Booklist"
"This is an important first step in re-examining a major
intellectual and should serve as a springboard for more in-depth
and balanced evaluations."
-- "Publishers Weekly"
"Irving Howe: A Life of Passionate Dissent is a thoroughly
researched, warmly delivered biography of a man who was the soul of
mid-century intellectual life in America."
-- "The Observer"
aGerald Sorinas intelligent, sympathetic, and engaging biography
of Irving Howe is very fine intellectual history.a
--Eli Lederhendler, The Hebrew University
"Well-researched biography . . . . Sorin seems to have spoken to
everybody who knew Howe."
--"The Independent"
"Sorin, a professor at CUNY-New Paltz, excellently details the
three guiding elements of Howe's life: politics, literature and
Judaism."--"Flak Magazine"
"Sorin here presents a richly detailed life of Howe...an
insightful and comprehensive biography."
--"Library Journal"
By the time he died in 1993 at the age of 73, Irving Howe was
one of the twentieth century's most important public thinkers.
Deeply passionate, committed to social reform and secular
Jewishness, ardently devoted to fiction and poetry, in love with
baseball, music, and ballet, Howe wrote with such eloquence and
lived with such conviction that his extraordinary work is now part
of the canon of American social thought.
In the first comprehensive biography of Howe's life, historian
Gerald Sorin brings us close to this man who rose from Jewish
immigrant poverty in the 1930s to become one of the most
provocative intellectuals of our time. Known most widely for his
award-winning book "World of Our Fathers," a rich portrayal of the
East European Jewish experience in New York, Howe also won acclaim
for his prodigious output of illuminating essays on American
culture and as an indefatigable promoter of democratic socialism as
can be seen in the pages of "Dissent," the journal he edited for
nearly forty years.
Deeply devoted to the ideal of democratic radicalism and true
equality, Howe was constantly engaged in a struggle for decency and
basic fairness in the face of social injustice. In the century of
Auschwitz, the Gulag, and global inter-ethnic mass murder, it was
difficult to sustain politicalcertainties and take pride in one's
humanity. To have lived a life of conviction and engagement in that
era was a notable achievement. Irving Howe lived such a life and
Gerald Sorin has done a masterful job of guiding us through it in
all its passion and complexity.
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