My Love Affair with America: The Cautionary Tale of a Cheerful Conservative (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Norman Podhoretz has written several books that draw from his life story and recount his neoconservative migration from the political Left to the political Right (Breaking Ranks, Ex-Friends). What's striking about My Love Affair with America is how he describes both places as "uncomfortably similar": "It was because I could not stomach the terrible and untrue things [my left-wing friends in 1960s] were saying about this country that I wound up breaking with them.... But then, in the mid-1990s, there unexpectedly came an outburst of anti-Americanism even among some of the very conservatives" whom he had least expected to demonstrate it. (He has in mind, among other incidents, the semi-famous "First Things" debate collected in The End of Democracy?). Yet this book is not a dissection of political viewpoints: "Beyond being defended by a counterattack against its assailants and an exposure of their misrepresentations and slanders, America deserved to be glorified with a full throat and a whole heart." In a world that rewards intellectual cynicism and regards patriotism--such a basic human sentiment--as "the last refuge of scoundrels," this is a refreshing approach. Podhoretz loves America perhaps only the way members of immigrant families can: they, better than anybody else, understand what the alternatives are to life in the United States.

Podhoretz grew up in New York speaking Yiddish before English. He writes: "America, according to some who have preceded me in feeling much as I do about it, is 'God's country.' That is, as the pages that follow will attest, a judgment with which I have no inclination whatsoever to disagree." "My Love Affair with America" occasionally veers toward cliché, but only because patriotism is a shop-worn topic for "cheap politicians." Podhoretz knows when he's approaching the danger zone, and combines a wonderful writing style with an infective fondness for his subject matter to make this book rise far above the typical Fourth of July oration. Those familiar with Podhoretz's previous writings will find plenty of what they've come to expect--stories about growing up, tales of the New York intellectual world, and occasionally zinging comments. My Love Affair with America will particularly appeal to anybody whose spine has tingled during a rendition of "America the Beautiful." --John J. Miller

From Publishers Weekly

Patriotism comes easily to Podhoretz, the influential conservative thinker who, during a 35-year stint as editor of Commentary, steered the magazine from unabashed Left/liberalism firmly to the Right. Now a septuagenarian, this once-hotheaded utopian looks back, with an engaging lucidity and a crisp style, at his remarkable life, which he began as the Yiddish-speaking child of a Brooklyn milkman and the grandson of Jewish immigrants from Galicia in Eastern Europe. Having cut his political teeth in the leftist Popular Front (he winces recalling the blank-verse ode he once wrote to the 1942 Battle of Stalingrad), Podhoretz reports the exhilaration he felt at defending McCarthy-era America against his communist colleagues while on a Fulbright scholarship at Cambridge. The first blush of love for his country then developed into a passionate affair, which he fleshes out in this meandering volume. He recalls colleagues such as Saul Bellow, Irving Howe and Nathan Glazer; dissects the politics of anti-Vietnam radicals; and unflinchingly evaluates his own responsibility for the spread of what he calls a "morbid and dangerous" hatred of America on both the Left and Right. Still loudly and proudly defending the nation against Marxists, Gore Vidal and the ACLU, Podhoretz retains his self-described ability to make pro-American arguments that have his opponents frothing at the mouth. Whatever the reader's political outlook, this book is a valuable record of one of the most vital periods in America's postwar coming-of-age. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (July 4, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743200519
• ISBN-13: 978-0743200516
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,322,383 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Ol' Norman, The Optimist, August 1, 2000

By	R. W. Rasband (Heber City, UT) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Despite his curmudgeonly reputation, this is a happy book by Podhoretz. Other conservatives, like Roger Kimball in his new book "The Long March", see the national culture as dominated by the bad ideas of the '60's and '70's. Podhoretz claims that our democracy still works and that the liberal elites are being forced by popular opinion to be more tolerant of the bourgeois middle-class values they abhor. Crime and social pathology are down, prosperity is way up, and religion "in the public square" is no longer such a forbidden concept. He backs his optimistic conclusions by relating his own life story, one of success and upward mobility even when he was a leftist radical and his "love affair with America" was disrupted by his utopianism. A chastened Podhoretz learned to appreciate his country all over again and warns right-wingers not to repeat his mistake. Some conservatives, because of the perceived public indifferance to the Clinton scandals, have proclaimed their despair over crumbling American values. Norman's advice, based on his long life is: have faith and patience. American capitalism and democracy, the most successful and resilient political system in the world (because it is based on freedom), will sort things out.

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Podhoretz: going squishy on us?, July 17, 2000

By	Jussi Bjorling (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

When reading anything by Norman Podhoretz, I usually have to unclench my teeth at least once an hour. To my surprise, I made it through the entire book in a single day, and my blood pressure never rose into the red zone.

This book is far more autobiographical than anything Podhoretz has written (that I've read to date), and anyone seeking to demonize him as a humorless reactionary will have trouble doing so after reading his portraits of his grandparents and parents.

Of course, Podhoretz hasn't changed THAT much, and along the way he makes excursions into both non-contentious history (the uneasy role of the American intellectual) and highly partisan recountings of his own battles (especially around the 1960s). This is the cultural critic we know and love/hate, and Podhoretz is at the top of the form (except for a few vicious ad hominem attacks reminiscent of those in "Ex-Friends").

Podhoretz also devotes a great deal of space to the nature of Jewish identity in this book, using his family history as a springboard. This is a little more sentimental than most of his writing, but still of high quality.

This is not vintage Podhoretz, due to the autobiographical framework, which forces the author to fit his observations into a tighter structure than he is used to. He also seems to have mellowed a bit with age. However, his powers are as sharp as ever, and it is refreshing to see him deploy them in a new context.

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hurray for America, the haven for immigrants & last gr8 hope, July 26, 2000

By	Larry Mark "editor of MyJewishBooks.com" (nyc) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The book opens with a rendition of American the Beautiful. Norman Podhoretz, Commentary Mag bigwig and Dean of America's neo Conservatives recollects his life and fight against Marxists and the ACLU. Born in Brownsville, the son of Jewish immigrants (Julius/Joel and Helen/Henya), Norman (Naphtali) attended public schools and sang Catholic hymns taught by Irish spinsters. He fills this ode to America with fabulous stories and anecdotes, as he recounts his youth and Liberalism and maturation as a Conservative. Along the way he continues his ode to those peddlers who helped create the America we know today. The book is a ringing Bell that counters what William F Buckley refers to as the keening sound of complaints against the USA. Podhoretz spins good yarns. I enjoyed his story about his graduation from Columbia, and receipt of a Fellowship to "Oxbridge." The other recipient turned out to be the son of the woman from Norman's mother's village. She and his his mother had shared the trip from Europe to Ellis Island and had lost touch over the decades. Another great story was a recollection of Daniel Bell poking fun at his future brother-in-law Alfred Kazin. Kazin, writing "On Native Ground", spoke of OUR forests. Bell found it weird to refer to OUR forests, as if urban working class Jews from NYC were Americans. Or when famed Professor of Philosophy Sidney Morgenbesser, a lapsed rabbi, found it bizarre that he was teaching undergrads about Saint Augustine. I was shocked by these quaint attitudes til I was even more shocked that thirty years later, Podhoretz recounts, Gore Vidal still writes about Jews as being not "us" or being dual loyalists. Part 4 of the book, titled "Dayyenu American-style," recounts Podhoretz's points of gratitude and his love of country. I suggest that the diligent reader pair this book with Dershowitz's "Chutzpah."