The Norman Podhoretz Reader: A Selection of His Writings from the 1950s through the 1990s [Hardcover]

Norman Podhoretz (Author), Thomas L. Jeffers (Editor), Paul Johnson (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 30, 2003

Norman Podhoretz "is a thinker and writer and polemicist, a geopolitician and student of religious ideas, an autobiographer of genius, a man who reacts sharply to the news as it pours from the press and the airwaves, who thinks deeply, angrily, and sincerely about it, and commits his thoughts into vivid and penetrative argument."

So writes the eminent British historian Paul Johnson in his introduction to this indispensable collection of Norman Podhoretz's essays of the past fifty years. Organized by decade, these essays, fascinating in themselves, also add up to a running history of American literature and intellectual life in the second half of the twentieth century. From Vladimir Nabokov to Saul Bellow, from Ralph Ellison to Norman Mailer, from Hannah Arendt to Henry Kissinger, Podhoretz has dealt with the most important novelists and thinkers of the period. He has also turned his attention to such major European figures as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, George Orwell, and Isaiah Berlin, and his trenchant appraisals of both Americans and Europeans are as fresh and lively today as when they first appeared. Many of them have been unavailable for years, and will prove revelatory for first-time readers and longtime admirers alike.

The New York intellectuals, of whom Podhoretz is the archetype, loved to read and discuss literature, but they never stopped arguing about politics. Intertwined with the literary essays, "The Norman Podhoretz Reader" offers some of the best and most influential political essays written by anyone in our time. Through such classics as ""My" Negro Problem -- and Ours," his famous reassessments in "Why We Were in Vietnam," and his retrospective look atneoconservatism (of which he was one of the founding fathers), Podhoretz has led and changed opinion throughout his career.

In addition to all this, "The Norman Podhoretz Reader" includes self-contained excerpts from the books "Making It, Breaking Ranks," and "Ex-Friends" that demonstrate why Johnson calls Podhoretz "an auto- biographer of genius." Taken together, these readings provide a rich sample of the work of one of America's great contemporary men of letters -- an extraordinary writer who is equally comfortable discussing the Marquis de Sade and the Middle East, American foreign policy and theological disputes, and who brings the same vigor, intelligence, and literary grace to this amazingly broad range of subjects and issues.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Norman Podhoretz used to say, "One of the longest journeys in the world is the journey from Brooklyn to Manhattan." Podhoretz's journey to become one of America's most prominent intellectuals is remarkable: from Brownsville, Brooklyn, where he was the son of immigrant Jews, to Columbia University, Cambridge and finally, the editorship of the important intellectual journal Commentary. During the past five decades, Podhoretz has produced notable books and essays on a variety of topics including literature, politics, Jewish thought and culture. This reader brings together a collection of these essays and book excerpts, tracking Podhoretz's journey from young literary critic in the '50s ("The Adventures of Saul Bellow") to leading provocative thinker in the '60s ("My Negro Problem-and Ours") to prominent and influential neoconservative in later decades ("From Breaking Ranks: Prologue: A Letter to My Son"). Whether he writes about Saul Bellow, Vietnam or Larry Flynt, Podhoretz produces essays that share a common strand: in addition to their general perspicacity and good writing, they are highly personal. Not only do these essays reflect the ideas of the time in which they were written but they also illustrate how those ideas have affected Podhoretz as a thinking person and as a human being. To confine Podhoretz, as many do, to a political camp is to misunderstand the man and his intellectual journey. While faithful conservatives will certainly appreciate this collection, anyone who is interested in reading or writing about ideas in a way that is meaningful should consider reading at least a sampling of Podhoretz's work.
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From Booklist

Drawn from a half-century of provocative output, this anthology traces both Podhoretz's personal intellectual journey from the Left to the Right, and his battles within the combative post-World War II New York intellectual elite, which he yearned to join (see Making It, 1967) and with which he became disgusted (see Ex-Friends, 1999). As historian Paul Johnson notes in the introduction, "Intellectuals play for keeps," and Podhoretz takes no prisoners here. Embarking on his career as a literary critic in the 1950s, Podhoretz slammed up-and-comers such as Saul Bellow and Allen Ginsberg, but at heart he was still an in-group radical. Divided into decades, the volume reflects Podhoretz's alienation from the Partisan Review crowd and his ever-closer affinity with Reagan-style conservatism, especially in foreign policy. A chapter from Why We Were in Vietnam (1982) exemplifies Podhoretz's attacking style, in this case on certain intellectuals' defense of the communist side in the Vietnam conflict. Whatever a reader's politics, any appreciation of intellectual history would be incomplete without a sampling of Podhoretz's work. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1ST edition (December 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743236610
• ISBN-13: 978-0743236614
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #889,762 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ideas Have Consequences, June 19, 2004

By 

R. W. Rasband (Heber City, UT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Norman Podhoretz Reader: A Selection of His Writings from the 1950s through the 1990s (Hardcover)

"The Norman Podhoretz Reader" is a definitive collection of essays and book excerpts from the godfather of neo-conservatism. The selections stretch back to the 1950's when he was an eager young leftist, to the 1990's when he saw many of his second thoughts about the left vindicated by history. Almost half the material in the book is from the '90's so it hasn't appeared in previous book collections of his work.

Podhoretz had his fling with antinomianism in the '50's and '60's--that is, an attitude of hostility to law. But because he was a devoted family man he was forced to reconsider the true effects of the "liberation" of those heady decades. He began so see: the bloody tyranny of utopian socialism; the monstrous arrogance of the post-war "new class" of liberal intellectuals and managers who thought they could repeal natural law and reshape human nature; the wisdom of religious thought; and the virtues of the United States as the worldwide guarantor of freedom and true liberalism.

Some of my favorite pieces in this book are; "The Know-Nothing Bohemians" where Podhoretz debunks the Beats by examining the real-world consequences of their ideas about life (he may have been too hard on them as artists, but he had a point about them as people.) "An Open Letter to Milan Kundera", a brilliant consideration of that great novelist's work. "A Foul-Weather Friend to Norman Mailer", which examines his long, complex personal relationship with that eminence. "Was Bach Jewish?", a cheeky claim on that great composer for Podhoretz's own tradition. "If Orwell Were Alive Today", which convincingly demonstrates the conservative tendencies of the author of "Animal Farm" and "1984."

Podhoretz's great gifts are his preternatural clarity of vision and hs forceful, elegant prose. Paul Johnson compares him to Orwell, and Jean-Francois Revel compares him to Emerson. Reading this book is like getting a second university liberal arts education, only this time from a professor who know what he's talking about.

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful collection, December 30, 2003

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Seth J. Frantzman (Jerusalem, Israel) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Norman Podhoretz Reader: A Selection of His Writings from the 1950s through the 1990s (Hardcover)

This is a wonderful collection of essays and chapters from Mr. Podhoretz. Mr. Podhoretz is one of the great dissidents of the right whose stance against his `former friends' of the left has earned him a grand reputation and much critique. In this new reader you will find such wonderfully insightful essays as `My Negro Problem-and ours' as well as his views of Hannah Arendt and Eichman where he skewers her opinion that the Jews should have fought harder in WWII by showing that in fact Germany lost the war in order to `finish' the Holocaust. Here you will find the great essays and open letters where Podhoretz declares himself out to his former friends of the left and where he takes on such luminaries as Mr. Ginsberg. A fabulous collection that will be a great addition to any shelf that contains Bloom, Rand, Strauss or Horowitz.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars High seriousness at its best, May 16, 2005

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Norman Podhoretz Reader: A Selection of His Writings from the 1950s through the 1990s (Hardcover)

Podhoretz is a literary and cultural critic, an autobiographer man-of- letters, and political polemicist. Most importantly he is a writer who truly stands for basic values , for truth and for goodness and for aesthetic excellence. In his long career he has been at the center of New York intellectual life.
It is possible to quarrel with many of his judgments and to find fault with many of his literary evaluations but at the same time understand that he is treating both Literature and Life with the kind of ' high seriousness' which his mentors Leavis and Trilling were forceful advocates of.
Podhoretz is a fighter who might be testy at times but whose writing truly stands for what is best in our culture.
Reading him is an education and at the same time often a very great pleasure.