Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey [Hardcover]

David Horowitz (Author), Jamie Glazov (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2003

David Horowitz underwent the most dramatic political conversion since Whittaker Chambers. And at every stop of his intellectual journey, he has produced sparkling and provocative commentary. From his youthful days as a leader of the New Left in the 1960s to his current role as master strategist of the right, Horowitz’s polemical legacy is unmatched in wit and integrity.

Horowitz’s newest book, Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey, provides the first map of his intellectual development. Complementing his acclaimed autobiography, Radical Son, the selections in Left Illusions range from his first book, published over forty years ago, to his most recent writings on the war against terror. The pieces include his polemics, journalism, and scholarship, along with select chapters from most of his books. Their subjects range from the origins of the New Left to the Cold War, from the fall of communism to political radicalism, race relations, the war on terror, the intellectual culture wars, and modern conservatism. Twenty-eight of the selections have not been published in book form or are contained in texts that are generally unavailable.

"I make no apologies for my present position," Horowitz writes. "My values have not changed, but my sense of what supports them and makes them possible has." He became profoundly disillusioned with the radical movement because of a tragedy both personal and political. The whole fascinating story is here for the reader to follow as it unfolded. Left Illusions is really the story of our times, lived out by an extraordinary individual.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While most kids his age were outside playing baseball, young Horowitz was attending Communist rallies and parades. During the '60s Horowitz stayed true to his radical roots, becoming a prominent leader of the New Left. But when a close friend was murdered by the Black Panthers, Horowitz sank into a pit of personal and political despair. After a 10-year exile from politics, he finally came to grips with what he now saw as the inhumanity of his radical life and committed what was considered the greatest betrayal (he has been called a Nazi and a "demented lunatic"): he became a conservative. His latest book is a collection of articles, one published for the first time here, and some excerpts from previous books, tracing the scope of his political journey. He writes on race, AIDS and the war on terror, but saves most of his energy for what he views as the destructive force of the progressives, the harm wrought by Communists around the world as well as in America, a criticism all the more poignant coming from one who had once marched in their ranks. Horowitz demonstrates a clear and sound thought process as well as an unusual talent for good writing. Whatever one many think about Horowitz's more controversial views and tactics-such as his denunciation on campuses around the country of the slavery reparations movement-he is one of the best political writers on either side of the aisle.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Horowitz demonstrates a clear and sound thought process....one of the best political writers on either side of the aisle." -- Publishers Weekly

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 497 pages
• Publisher: Spence Publishing Company; First Edition edition (October 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1890626511
• ISBN-13: 978-1890626518
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #845,423 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

67 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For the open-minded, July 30, 2004

By 

ShamayimBlue - See all my reviews

This review is from: Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey (Hardcover)

David Horowitz provides the reader with a unique perspective of political life on both the left and the conservative right. For half of his life he was one of the most prominent American leftists. He helped establish the New Left - a movement that sought to dissociate the socialist dream from the gulags of Stalin - and committed himself in various ways to its cause: organizing the first anti-war rally at Berkeley, editing the left's most definitive periodicals, and aiding such organizations as the Black Panthers. Personal tragedy (the murder of a close friend at the hands of the Black Panther, and the subsequent cover-up by the entire left community) made him deeply question his ideological commtiments, and after a period of several years, he emerged again as a figure of the conservative right.

It is a sad fact about the state of political discourse (especially on college campuses) that people of the left automatically brand people of the right as racists, bigots, fascists and sexist pigs. Read this book - it will disabuse you of such preposterous notions (if you indeed believe in them). Though there are certainly prominent right wing nuts (usually derided by other conservatives) you will quite clearly see the left's utter hypocrisy in levelling these accusations. With a clear, rational analysis - supported by facts - and made very readable by his lucid writing, Horowitz covers a broad range of issues in his debate with the left. He writes of their willingness to support the world's most oppressive regimes, and downplay or turn a blind eye to the deaths of millions (such as after the Vietnam War, the slaughter by the North Vietnamese government and also Pol Pot's regime - under these regimes, more Indochinese countrymen died in three years than they had in the thirteen prior years of war). He discusses the untenable nature of the socialist dream and how that dream has assumed various guises both before and after the fall of the Soviet Union; the Marxist doctrine is bound to be destructive when applied to the real world, as predicted even by contemporaries of Marx and seen by every regime that has espoused those doctrines (though again, the left pointedly does not learn from history and the deaths of millions and the oppression of millions more). There are essays on the dominance of the left in our culture, particularly in academia, where college conservative groups receive contempt and scant funding from administrators and other student groups, and professors regularly teach only the left side of the argument and demand that students adhere to left opinions while writing assignments for class; I had known of the bias on campuses before reading this book, but reading the statistical figures and personal experiences shocked me - so many college students graduate without being encouraged in independent thought and inquiry and without ever hearing both sides of the debate. You will also be able to read Horowitz's debate on the reparations issue (one of the many debates in which his opponents unfairly smeared him); here you can see what he actually wrote and judge for yourself.

The compilation of essays and excerpts, taken from an assortment of Horowitz's work, will show you his progression from radical leftist to conservative. Conservatives are for the most part a diverse body of people committed to a kind of classic liberalism: upholding private property, wishing for less government interference in private life, and supporting individual rights and individual enterprise.

128 of 152 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reviwer Actually Read Book, December 22, 2003

By 

Finman "toddb374" (Cedar Rapids, IA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey (Hardcover)

....
While this latest effort from the prolific Horowitz certainly contains autobiographical material, as one would expect of a book that follows an activist's ideological journey, it is really much more than that. The scope of the chapters range from the very specific (e.g., the propriety of reparations) to the demonstrated failings of ultra liberal, socialist or communist policies over the past century(as well as where they may well take us in the future if allowed to flourish). Conservatives will find their beliefs & suspicions reinforced by much of what the author writes. His appeal, however, lies not in simply stating time-worn principles from Conservatism 101. Horowitz has an uncanny knack for demanding of liberals the same consistency--in their theories/policies and the application of them--that they demand of others. He exposes demonstrably false assumptions, shows how they corrupt otherwise worthy goals, and in many instances work against the end they seek to achieve.
If there is one book I would buy in a minute after having read this one, it is a genuine, intellectually honest literary effort by Horowitz's opponents that exposes the factual or logical errors in Left Illusions. I suspect it would be a daunting task. I do not expect to see one. It is much easier to stick a label on someone, whether it be an accurate one or not, than take on discomforting facts that don't accommodate one's worldview. Horowitz has devoted countless hours and hundreds of pages documenting the errors of his past; not so much what he wanted for his fellow man, but how best it could be achieved. It's too bad some people are more interested in silencing or marginalizing him than in rebutting him and his work. I do understand their reluctance to take on that assignment, however. Name-calling has always been easier than debating.

57 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Real Page Turner, January 5, 2004

By 

Frosty T. Kat "mintykat" (Jericho, Vt) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey (Hardcover)

I spent all weekend reading this book and could not put it down. The insights into the root causes of leftist illusions are fascinating, and are backed up by an awesome display of scholarly knowledge.
The book starts off slowly as it features some essays from Horowitz's past, but that really allows the plot to thicken in a sense, as the reader becomes engrossed in what amounts to a sort of ideological detective story as Horowitz investigates both his own motives and reasoning as well as that of his fellow leftists as he gradually frees himself from his enthrallment to Communism, then from Socialism, and finally from the left as a whole.
This is a must read for someone who is willing to look beneath the surface of politics to try and understand what makes the whole thing tick.