Amazon.com Review
The author of
Radical Son returns with a vigorous polemic against the American Left. Showing that liberals and conservatives have sharply contrasting views on the ideas of freedom and equality--and defining these differences in forceful prose--Horowitz goes on to blame the Left for many of what he believes to be America's ills, including multiculturalism, feminism, and economic socialism. "We speak reflexively of leftists as 'progressives,' even though their doctrines are rooted in nineteenth-century prejudice and have been refuted by a historical record of unprecedented bloodshed and oppression," writes Horowitz, an ex-Marxist who is now a staunch right-winger. In an especially controversial chapter, he charges gay-rights activists with creating a political environment that made it almost impossible for the public health community to react effectively to the AIDS crisis. Like the man himself, this book will attract lovers and loathers, depending on their political creed. For conservative readers, he performs the helpful task of clarifying their own convictions; for left-of-center ones, he provides a penetrating glimpse into the conservative mindset.
--John J. Miller
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
In his fiesty autobiography, Radical Son (LJ 12/96), Horowitz recounted his heady journey from Socialist Left to free-market Right. His new book is billed as a follow-up but basically revisits the same thesis advanced in the earlier work: that the ideals and values of the American Left are antithetical to the American way of life. Even after the collapse of communism, the Left "refuses to die," writes Horowitz. "Despite its dismal record of collusion and failure, the tradition of the Left is intellectually dominant in the American university today in a way that its disciples would never have dreamed possible 30 years ago." In denouncing the influence of the Left, Horowitz critiques the ideas of Eric Hobsbawm, Noam Chomsky, Isaac Deutscher, and other "anti-American" authors. Horowitz is an energetic polemicist, but his book is marred by careless statements, such as the inaccurate claim that Columbia University's "Great Books" course requires that undergraduates read "the avatars, and the fellow travellers of the discredited Left" such as Jurgen Habermas, John Rawls, and Hannah Arendt. Recommended for libraries with collections in conservative thought.?Kent Worcester, Marymount Manhattan Coll., New York
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.