New York Intellectuals

Last updated

The New York Intellectuals were a group of American writers and literary critics based in New York City in the mid-20th century. They advocated left-wing politics, being firmly anti-Stalinist. The group is known for having sought to integrate literary theory with Marxism and socialism while rejecting Soviet socialism as a workable or acceptable political model.

Contents

Trotskyism emerged as the most common standpoint among these anti-Stalinist Marxists. Irving Kristol, Irving Howe, Seymour Martin Lipset, Leslie Fiedler, and Nathan Glazer were members of the Trotskyist Young People's Socialist League. [1]

Many of these intellectuals were educated at City College of New York ("Harvard of the Proletariat"), [2] New York University, and Columbia University in the 1930s,[ citation needed ] and associated in the next two decades with the left-wing political journals Partisan Review , Dissent , and the then-left-wing but later neoconservative-leaning journal Commentary .[ citation needed ] Writer Nicholas Lemann has described these intellectuals as "the American Bloomsbury".[ citation needed ]

Some, including Kristol, Sidney Hook, and Norman Podhoretz, later became key figures in the development of neoconservatism. [3]

Members

Writers often identified as members of this group include:

See also

References

  1. Alexander Bloom: Prodigal Sons. The New York Intellectuals and Their World, Oxford University Press: NY / Oxford 1986, p. 109.
  2. Leonhardt, David (2017-01-18). "America's Great Working-Class Colleges". New York Times. Retrieved 2020-06-27.
  3. Hartman, Andrew (2015). A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars. University of Chicago Press. ISBN   978-0226379234.
  4. Wald, Alan M. (1987). The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s. UNC Press Books. p. 210. ISBN   978-0-8078-4169-3 . Retrieved 22 June 2020.
  5. Brick, Howard (1986). Daniel Bell and the decline of intellectual radicalism : social theory and political reconciliation in the 1940s. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press. p. 60-61,90,148. ISBN   978-0-299-10550-1. OCLC   12804502.
  6. Wilford, Hugh (2003). "Playing the CIA's Tune? The New Leader and the Cultural Cold War". Diplomatic History. 27 (1). Oxford University Press (OUP): 15–34. doi:10.1111/1467-7709.00337. ISSN   0145-2096.
  7. Roberts, Sam (2021-03-29). "Morris Dickstein, Critic and Cultural Historian, Dies at 81". New York Times. Retrieved 2021-04-07.
  8. 1 2 Howe 1970, p. 226.
  9. 1 2 Howe 1970, p. 228.
  10. Wald, Alan M. (1987). The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s. UNC Press Books. p. 50. ISBN   978-0-8078-4169-3 . Retrieved 22 June 2020.
  11. 1 2 Michael HOCHGESCHWENDER "The cultural front of the Cold War: the Congress for cultural freedom as an experiment in transnational warfare" Ricerche di storia politica, issue 1/2003, pp. 35-60
  12. Jumonville, Neil (1991). Critical Crossings: The New York Intellectuals in Postwar America. University of California Press. p. 187. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  13. Wald, Alan M. (1987). The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s. UNC Press Books. p. 141. ISBN   978-0-8078-4169-3 . Retrieved 22 June 2020.

Bibliography

Further reading