Anyone familiar with the tortured history of American socialism can appreciate this fine and pensive biography of one of its leading 20th century luminaries, fabled socialist and humanist author Michael Harrington. Noted historian Maurice Isserman ("America Divided"-see my review) delivers a wonderful account that passionately and comprehensively covers the long and eventful arc of Harrington's amazingly productive and prolific writing and academic careers as well as his exhaustive involvements in socialist politics and social activism. A stream of notables ranging from folksingers Peter, Paul and Mary, SDS's Tom Hayden, intellectuals like Irving Howe, and political figures like George Meany rub shoulders with Harrington, and we come to see his personal intellectual and political journey toward a better and fairer America as one with which we can each take common cause.
Educated in Massachusetts at Holy Cross, Harrington adopted the Jesuit perspective of enlightened social engagement early, and soon found himself rejecting his own comfortable middle class background to work among the urban poor. According to Isserman, it was inevitable for Harrington to act on his own antipathy to the gross materialism that surrounded him, and to extend this distaste for those living in luxury amid the squalor that surrounded them to his own philosophy and politics. Indeed, his own intellectual and philosophical journey provides the reader with a splendid portrait of the nature of American socialism in the middle of this century, and we find ourselves delving into remote nooks and crannies of the movement as Harrington makes his philosophical odyssey toward his own mature view of an open and democratically based contemporary socialism.
Along the way we learn a lot of important details about socialism as well as about how politics works in America. One at times becomes a bit winded at Harrington's sheer level of energy and capacity for work, for he sometimes seems to be everywhere doing everything at once. And it is this frenetic pace and sheer level of productive energy that one comes to admire in Harrington. In this day of self-satisfied torpor and delirium tremors from over-consumption, it is interesting to read about a man whose life was centered so energetically and so passionately around moral imperatives and ideas. Whether discussing his failure to successfully meld his old-style moral socialism with the new-left politics of young mavericks like Tom Hayden or his failure to actively engage the American Socialist Party in the debate over the war in Vietnam, Isserman brings Harrington and his times to vibrant life in these pages.
Of course, it was the publication of his overwhelmingly successful and influential book, "The Other America" that made Harrington a permanent fixture on the American scene, and everyone from John F. Kennedy to Bill Clinton have made reference to the importance of the book in forming their own perspectives regarding poverty in America. My recommendation is to first read "The Other America", because it is such a historical book both in terms of its content as well as in its effect on social policy for the last half of the 20th century. Then read this wonderful biography to understand the complex and troubling life of its author, one of the 20th century's most misunderstood and yet ultimately influential intellectuals. Enjoy!
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