Popular Front columnist and New Deal propagandist. Fearless opponent of McCarthyism and feared scourge of official liars. Enterprising, independent reporter and avid amateur classicist. As D.D. Guttenplan puts it in his compelling book, I.F. Stone did what few in his profession could—he always thought for himself. America's most celebrated investigative journalist himself remains something of a mystery, however. Born Isidor Feinstein in Philadelphia, raised in rural New Jersey, by the age of 25 this college drop-out was already an influential newsman, and enjoying extraordinary access to key figures in New Deal Washington and the friendship of important artists in New York.
It is Guttenplan’s wisdom to see that the key to Stone’s achievements throughout his singular career—and not just in his celebrated I.F. Stone’s Weekly—lay in the force and passion of his political commitments. Stone’s calm, forensic, yet devastating reports on American politics and institutions sprang from a radical faith in the long-term prospects for American democracy.
His testimony on the legacy of American politics from the New Deal and World War II to the era of the civil rights struggles, the Vietnam War, and beyond amounts to as vivid a record of those times as we are likely to have. Guttenplan's lively, provocative book makes clear why so many of his pronouncements have acquired the force of prophecy.
American Radical: The Life and Times of I. F. Stone
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
At his death, reporter and amateur classicist I.F. Stone was hailed as an iconoclast of journalism, a dogged investigator and a concise and clever writer, an American institution and a journalist's journalist. At the same time, he was called wrongheaded and accused of being a KGB agent. In this sometimes workmanlike but often animated biography, Guttenplan (The Holocaust on Trial) provides a lively portrait of a journalist who was as passionate about radical politics and getting a story right as he was about ballroom dancing. Drawing on interviews with Stone's family and friends, the complete archive of Stone's writings—including fragments of letters—and two previous biographies of Stone, Guttenplan traces his subject's life and career from Stone's early upbringing as Isidor Feinstein in Philadelphia and his days as a college dropout to his birth as one of America's premier journalists in the pages of the Nation, PM and eventually his own I.F. Stone's Weekly. A brilliant gadfly and independent thinker, Stone was at once cozy with New Deal politicians and union leaders. He reported undercover from Palestine as he accompanied Holocaust survivors through a British blockade and became a hero of America's Jews. Guttenplan's lively biography brings back to life a man whose work has often been forgotten but whose writing and life provide a model for the kind of freethinking journalism missing in society today. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
Praise for D.D. Guttenplan's The Holocaust on Trial:
“Guttenplan sat through every day of the trial, and no wiser, more honest or more melancholy book will ever be written about it.” —Neal Ascherson
“A mixture of superb reportage and serious reflection—about the role of Jewish identity politics in the United States, anti-Semitism in Britain and the historiography of the Cold War.” —Ian Buruma, New Yorker
“An exemplary book.” —Observer
“Well written . . . this is the best overall account we have so far of the trial as a whole and the personalities involved in it.” —Richard J. Evans, Sunday Telegraph
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I.F. Stone was an independent journalist now best known for the self-published "I.F. Stone's Weekly," which influenced a generation of crusading journalists. Stone presciently opposed the Vietnam War from the outset and otherwise set a standard for independence and analysis that his spiritual descendants, today's bloggers, can only emulate. Anyone interested in the great ideological, political, and cultural issues that engulfed 20th Century America and still affect us will want to read this fascinating biography. But if you come for the history what will keep you turning the pages is the portrait of a compelling and very human person (Stone smuggled himself into pre-independence Israel to see the first Arab-Israeli war first hand; in his old age, he taught himself ancient Greek and wrote a best seller about the trial of Socrates; after his death, he was unfairly targeted by the right wing as a Soviet agent). D.D. Guttenplan does a masterful job bringing to life the man and the times (just like the title says). Guttenplan has an impressive ability to describe Stone's world, whether in 1920s working-class Jewish Philadelphia or 1960s Washington and New York, and to summarize in a fair and perceptive way the many thorny political and ideological disputes that engulfed Stone, America, and the world. My standard for the merit of a book is how reluctant you are to put it down and how much food for thought it has given you. I loved meeting I.F. Stone, was sad to part company with him at the end, and was greatly enriched and inspired by Guttenplan's depiction of a life and times that continue to resonate today.
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
D.D. Guttenplan has got it completely right. I actually knew Izzy Stone a little bit. He was a force of nature and perhaps the 20th century's most important -- and certainly most independent -- political journalist. He was also a completely independent radical who had a life-time commitment to social justice but never compromised his own autonomy or allowed himself to parrot any kind of party line. Guttenplan's clear and intelligent narrative gives us a full picture of Stone's irrascible integrity as well as his utter brilliance as a writer and political analyst. It's also a great read.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By C. Glass
Format:Hardcover
Izzy Stone's Weekly provides the best chronicle of its time, far more reliable and critical of power than the Times of any American city. Anyone with doubts to this man's integrity and contribution to the art (rather than the mere practice) of journalism need only watch the great documentary of the early 1970s, I.F. Stone's Weekly, or read D. D. Guttenplan's biography. While, as Will Rogers famously said, nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public, I. F. Stone treated that public as if it were the conscience of the republic that Thomas Jefferson believed it would be. While we may lament the degradation of democracy in the United States, it is worthwhile to read about a man who never doubted its importance or its potential. It is about time he had the fine biography he deserved.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thorough and readable bio of a great American
A masterful biography of a journalist who had a great career, a period of loss of influence and access, and then a second great career singlehandedly scooping the big papers. Read more
Published 4 months ago by RHagan
4.0 out of 5 stars
oh! for another i.f. stone!
"agitate!,agitate!,agitate!".frederick douglas is quoted as saying these words.nobody did this better than i.f. Read more
Published on May 2, 2010 by J. O'connell
5.0 out of 5 stars
Eternal Hiostility to Bunk
I.F. Stone has already received at least three other extensive studies, but this is the most comprehensive and detailed social history and biography of Stone.It is I. F. Read more
Published on November 19, 2009 by Michael Wreszin
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thick as a Brick
This biography requires a lot of patience. It is a big book, and asks you to go through an incredibly long lineage of people, places, and events that wrapped around the life of... Read more
Published on September 17, 2009 by S. C Sochet
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great read, and very relevant to today
Well-written biographies are wonderful ways to learn and have a good read. You read without feeling as though you're slogging through a book you have to read for edification, as... Read more
Published on July 21, 2009 by P. M. Nolan
2.0 out of 5 stars
Little more than left wing hero worship
Guttenplan, like most of the left is smitten with Stone's left-wing politics more than his journalism. Read more
Published on July 19, 2009 by M. Hanson
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simply superb
I grew up avidly reading I.F Stone's Weekly in the dim dark days of McCarthyite America. What a delight to read about the man himself. Read more
Published on June 21, 2009 by Joseph Schwartz
5.0 out of 5 stars
I admit I haven't this yet, but there's a reason for it.....
and the reason is I find myself savoring every line. I didn't know I.F. Stone (although I had a couple of brief telephone conversations with him), but he and his reader were... Read more
Published on June 19, 2009 by Jeff Kisseloff
5.0 out of 5 stars
Carrying the torch
Those who have read Barbara Ehrenreich's commencement address to this years graduating class at UC Berkeley know how lucky we are to still have a few such journalists as D.D. Read more
Published on June 19, 2009 by John Whiting
5.0 out of 5 stars
First a radical, then a "traitor," finally a saint
Izzy Stone and I had lunch together a number of times in Washington DC between 1962 and 1982, while I was a Fellow of the Inst. for Policy Studies and he was --- Izzy. Read more
Published on June 19, 2009 by Arthur Waskow
