New York Intellectuals

For the 1987 book, see The New York Intellectuals (book).

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.

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, under the influence of Max Shachtman. ^[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:

• Lionel Abel
• Hannah Arendt
• William Barrett
• Daniel Bell ^{[4] [5] [6]}
• Saul Bellow (despite his usual association with the city of Chicago)
• Norman Birnbaum ^{[ citation needed ]}
• Elliot E. Cohen
• Midge Decter
• Morris Dickstein ^[7]
• Leslie Fiedler
• Nathan Glazer ^{[ citation needed ]}
• Clement Greenberg ^[8]
• Paul Goodman ^[9]
• Richard Hofstadter
• Sidney Hook ^{[10] [11]}
• Irving Howe
• Alfred Kazin
• Irving Kristol
• Norman Mailer ^[12]
• Seymour Martin Lipset
• Mary McCarthy ^{[13] [11]}
• Dwight Macdonald ^[8]
• William Phillips
• Norman Podhoretz ^{[ citation needed ]}
• Philip Rahv
• Harold Rosenberg
• Isaac Rosenfeld
• Delmore Schwartz ^[9]
• Susan Sontag
• Harvey Swados
• Diana Trilling
• Lionel Trilling
• Robert Warshow ^{[ citation needed ]}

See also

• Anti-Stalinist left
• Communism
• Frankfurt School
• Trotskyism
• Neoconservatism
• New Philosophers

References

1. Alexander Bloom: Prodigal Sons. The New York Intellectuals and Their World, Oxford University Press: NY / Oxford 1986, pp. 109, 134.
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. Howe 1970, p. 226.
9. 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. 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

• Bloom, Alexander. Prodigal Sons: The New York Intellectuals and Their World, Oxford University Press, 1986, ISBN   0-19-503662-X
• Cooney, Terry A. The Rise of the New York Intellectuals: Partisan Review and Its Circle, 1934-1945, University of Wisconsin Press, 1986, ISBN   0-299-10710-8
• Dorman, Joseph. Arguing the World: The New York Intellectuals in their Own Words. New York: Free Press, 2000. ISBN   0-684-86279-4.
• Howe, Irving (1970). "The New York Intellectuals". Decline of the New. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. pp. 211–265. ISBN   978-0-15-124510-9.
• Jumonville, Neil. Critical Crossings: The New York Intellectuals in Postwar America, University of California Press, 1991, ISBN   0-520-06858-0
• Laskin, David. Partisans: Marriage, Politics, and Betrayal Among the New York Intellectuals University of Chicago Press, 2001, ISBN   0-226-46893-3
• Podhoretz, Norman (1967). "The Family Tree". Making It. New York: Random House. pp. 109–136. OCLC   292070.
• Wald, Alan M. (1987). The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN   0-8078-4169-2.

Further reading

• Eisenstadt, Peter, ed. (2005). "New York intellectuals". The Encyclopedia of New York State. Syracuse University Press. pp. 1088–. ISBN   978-0-8156-0808-0.

External links

• Lives of the New York intellectuals by Robert Fulford in The Globe and Mail
• The Failure of the New York Intellectuals by Daniel Silliman in Comment
• Arguing the World, a PBS documentary