Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey (Paperback)

by David Horowitz (Author) "WHAT MY FATHER LEFT ME, REALLY, WAS A FEW STORIES..." (more)
Key Phrases: prison movement, gay leaders, political comrades, New Left, New York, San Francisco (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Raised to be a committed Marxist by communist intellectual parents, Horowitz was in on the ground floor of Berkeley activism, and through his work as an editor at Ramparts magazine, he emerged as a key player in the New Left. He went on to become an active supporter of the Black Panthers and something of an intimate of their founder, Huey P. Newton. Yet today he is an outspoken political conservative who has supported many right-wing causes (such as the contras in Nicaragua) and been critical of '60s radicalism in general. It would be easy to conclude that Horowitz went from A to Z this way because he's superficial and unstable. Instead, as this moving, intellectual autobiography shows, his second thoughts about leftism emerged gradually as he experienced various aspects of the "Movement." The catalytic episode came when he discovered that the Panthers had murdered a friend of his, but even then Horowitz was slow to convert, primarily because he was heavily enmeshed in what he now views as the quintessential leftist habit of judging politics by its intentions, not its acts. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
Horowitz (The Rockefellers) has prominently charted his turn from leftism in Destructive Generation (both books co-written with Peter Collier), but here, he digs deeper to recount his intertwined personal and political odysseys. Because he has witnessed some elemental political battles, and because he tells his often painful story with candor and passion, his lengthy book remains absorbing. His teacher parents were New York City Jewish Communists full of angst and false conviction; young David emerged convinced at least that ideas were important. Married, Horowitz moved to Berkeley for graduate school, the New Left and Ramparts, the hot radical magazine. However, family man Horowitz was made uneasy by figures such as Michael Lerner and Robert Scheer, who rejected community; worse, though Horowitz found Huey Newton's courting of his advice seductive, he fell into "internal free-fall" when he realized that the Panthers were criminal thugs. His Jewish identity?at a time when blacks and the Third World were not allies?helped move Horowitz rightward, as did his disgust with dogmatic leftists. And in 1985, Horowitz and Collier publicly supported Ronald Reagan; the author considers himself a classical liberal. Particularly interesting is his score-settling with authors Todd Gitlin, Tom Hayden and Paul Berman, who, he argues, either sanitize '60s history or misrepresent his own views; now, with the help of foundations, he runs the magazine Heterodoxy and monitors what he views as liberal excess.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; Touchstone Ed edition (April 21, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684840057
• ISBN-13: 978-0684840055
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (113 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #468,314 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

79 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Okay, he's a "traitor"--but is he right?, December 22, 1999

By	Walter Hearne (Alexandria, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Radical Son: A Journey Through Our Times from Left to Right (Hardcover)

It is no surprise that David Horowitz is viciously despised on the left. He now attacks the left with the same persistence and self-righteousness that he once employed in service of radical causes. I can't help but notice, however, that many of his leftist critics choose to explain him in personal, psychological terms rather than discussing the truth of his claims about the left. Perhaps Horowitz leaves himself open to such an interpretation by including so much non-political material--his estrangement from his parents, his broken marriages--in his story. I believe the more important issues of contention are his various claims about the intentions and integrity of the leaders of the New Left, such as Tom Hayden, or their complicity in despicable acts of violence. His charges about the death of Betty Van Patter at the hands of the Black Panthers have brought a bitter exchange with some of his former comrades at salon.com. Say what you will about Horowitz, he is at least no coward and does not shrink from the most difficult issues. This book is important, because it is a necessary antidote to all the romanticized and hagiographic presentations of the sixties and its leaders stuffed down our throats by some of the Baby Boomers--too many people my age seem to swallow the myth that the sixties were about a bunch of idealistic, naive young people fighting against an oppressive system.

35 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazon's Reveiw is BS. Buy and study this book!, April 27, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Radical Son: A Journey Through Our Times from Left to Right (Hardcover)

One of the best, if not the best, books ever written about the"new left". Horowitz reveals the depths of his own personalagony as he awakened from the tunnel vision dreamworld of leftism to the brutal reality of communism internationally and of so called "progressives" here at home. The book is written with great humility and frankness which does not seek to hide his own frailties and mistakes (nor, to the dismay of people like the one who wrote the amazon review, review, doesn't hide the self serving duplicity, lies and dogmatism of many of the left's "leading lights" such as Tom Haydem, Tod Gitlin, Angela Davis, Julianne Malveaux, Paul Berman,Bob Scheer, etc. Just as notable as its revelations about what these people knew and have kept quiet about (to this day) is Horowitz's own development from a rigid, orthodox "red baby" devoted to a cause above all other ends into a passionate, but humane advocate of the rule of law and process as the only real defense we have against oppression --- a "beourgeiose" concept despised by the people who hunger to be our oppressors: the liberal left.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary... educational as well as highly entertaining, November 1, 2001

By	"the_ususal_suspects" (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews

(...) Radical Son is much more than an autobiography. It is a first-hand chronicle of the roots of the modern progressive movement, from one of the people who helped create it. His fascinating account of his parents in a communist cell in 1940’s New York will keep the thoughtful reader spellbound, and his insider account of the radical movement in sixties Berkeley is fascinating, enlightening, and highly entertaining. From Paul Robeson to Tom Hayden, from Bertrand Russell to Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver, many of the famous, almost fabulous, names that have come to represent the sixties radical culture appear in this book, stripped of their half-mythical trappings and presented as the often deeply flawed people they really were.

Read this book. You’ll learn a lot that you didn’t know before, and you’ll enjoy the ride.