The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left From the 1930s to the 1980s - Softcover

Alan M. Wald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807841692 ISBN 13: 9780807841693

Publisher: University North Carolina Pr, 1987

In contrast to other scholars who emphasize the affinity of the ""New York Intellectuals"" for literary modernism and its largely Jewish composition as its defining characteristics, Wald finds these traits to be secondary to the group's agonizing efforts in the 1930s and after to build a Marxist alternative to the official Communist movement. Wald presents an absorbing account of this misunderstood chapter in the history of literary radicalism and the Marxist intellectual tradition in the United States.

Review:

Wald has written a valuable book about the ''political trajectory'' of this country's leading intellectuals over the past 50 years. It is well-researched, insightful and extremely opinionated. It deserves a wide audience.--The New York Times Book Review

Wald's grasp of the ideological twists and turns of his protagonists is first-rate ... His story has an epic sweep.--D.D. Guttenplan, Village Voice

A masterwork of scholarly inquiry, based upon vast research of primary sources including interviews with over one hundred informants, and will no doubt prove to be the definitive study. Wald glides adroitly between
multiple roles of intellectual and social historian, political theorist, and literary critic; his own engaging literary style finds expression in the tightly drawn biographical sketches that he weaves gracefully into the larger fabric. This is Marxist scholarship at its best.--Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences

From the Back Cover:

The New York Intellectuals is an absorbing account of an often misunderstood chapter in the history of literary radicalism and the Marxist intellectual tradition in the United States. It is enriched by more than one hundred personal interviews as well as critical interpretations of novels and short stories depicting the inner life of the group.

• Publisher: University North Carolina Pr
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0807841692
• ISBN 13: 9780807841693
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 456