Synopses & Reviews
View the
Table of Contents. Read the
Preface.
"Sorin does a solid and convincing job of chronicling Howe's life and times."The Jewish Quarterly Review
"Irving Howe: A Life of Passionate Dissent offers such an intellectually detailed and conceptually animated account of Howe's work. Sorin did an excellent job."Magill's Literary Annual
"In this crisply written and well-conceived biography, Sorin captures the essence of these commitmentsone to Jewish culture, one to political activism, and one to literary criticism. Sorin offer[s] a compelling, informative, and balanced account of a leading icon of the New York intellectuals."The Journal of American History
"Sorin's biography summarizes Howe's important writings and covers his life in a carefully documented way."
American Jewish World
A New York Times "Books for Summer Reading" selection
Winner of the 2003 National Jewish Book Award for History
"Sorin has given coherence to a complex life, showing that it was Howe's willingness to grapple with his own contradictions that made his intellectual journey so revealing of its place and time."
Times Literary Supplement
"Sorin portrays Howe the tough political fighter alongside the brilliant writer and generous friend...Sorin has built a solid portrait of the writer and critic...he does a very good job of illuminating the relationship between politics and literature in Howe's intellectual life, particularly the way in which his socialism was informed by his reading of Yiddish literature."
New York Times Book Review
"In this fine biography, Gerald Sorin shows us why we need more Irving Howes today. Sorin traces the shifts and turns in a life that wound up creating one of America's most thoughtful leftistsà. A complexity of political views, a tension-ridden intellectual life (rather than academic careerism), an ability to criticize while remaining humanethese are things we need a lot more of today. For reminding us of this, we have not just Irving Howe but Gerald Sorin to thank."
The Washington Post
"What Sorin has accomplished in this beautifully written, balanced and probing intellectual biography is the most complete picture we have of Howe, a portrait of how one Jewish intellectual and activist struggled daily to balance scholarship and politics and the life of the mind and a life of action. . . . Sorin has ably captured the life and passion of this most unusual man, whose commitment to democracy is a legacy still worth cherishing."
Los Angeles Times
"Sorin skillfully captures the illuminating fire of Howe's convictions, conflicts, and achievements. [His] deep understanding of Howe's belief in intelligent public discourse...enables him not only to portray a great intellectual but also to encapsulate a key era in American politics."
Booklist
"This is an important first step in re-examining a major intellectual and should serve as a springboard for more in-depth and balanced evaluations."
Publishers Weekly
"Irving Howe: A Life of Passionate Dissent is a thoroughly researched, warmly delivered biography of a man who was the soul of mid-century intellectual life in America."
The Observer
"Gerald Sorin's intelligent, sympathetic, and engaging biography of Irving Howe is very fine intellectual history."
Eli Lederhendler, The Hebrew University
"Well-researched biography . . . . Sorin seems to have spoken to everybody who knew Howe."
The Independent
"Sorin, a professor at CUNY-New Paltz, excellently details the three guiding elements of Howe's life: politics, literature and Judaism."Flak Magazine
"Sorin here presents a richly detailed life of Howe...an insightful and comprehensive biography."
Library Journal
By the time he died in 1993 at the age of 73, Irving Howe was one of the twentieth century's most important public thinkers. Deeply passionate, committed to social reform and secular Jewishness, ardently devoted to fiction and poetry, in love with baseball, music, and ballet, Howe wrote with such eloquence and lived with such conviction that his extraordinary work is now part of the canon of American social thought.
In the first comprehensive biography of Howe's life, historian Gerald Sorin brings us close to this man who rose from Jewish immigrant poverty in the 1930s to become one of the most provocative intellectuals of our time. Known most widely for his award-winning book World of Our Fathers, a rich portrayal of the East European Jewish experience in New York, Howe also won acclaim for his prodigious output of illuminating essays on American culture and as an indefatigable promoter of democratic socialism as can be seen in the pages of Dissent, the journal he edited for nearly forty years.
Deeply devoted to the ideal of democratic radicalism and true equality, Howe was constantly engaged in a struggle for decency and basic fairness in the face of social injustice. In the century of Auschwitz, the Gulag, and global inter-ethnic mass murder, it was difficult to sustain political certainties and take pride in one's humanity. To have lived a life of conviction and engagement in that era was a notable achievement. Irving Howe lived such a life and Gerald Sorin has done a masterful job of guiding us through it in all its passion and complexity.
Review
“Irving Howe”s career, with its constantly shifting strands of political activism, literary commentary, and accessible Jewish scholarship, makes a great subject for an intellectual biography. Painstakingly researched and fluently written, Gerald Sorins book strikes just the right balance between sympathetic identification and critical distance. Making excellent use of interviews, memoirs, and unpublished letters, Sorin recreates the many significant issues that engaged Howe. He brings considerable drama to Howes gradual break with Marxist sectarianism, his shifting perspectives on socialism, his momentous reconnection to Jewish culture, his battles with the New Left, and the literary controversies that accompanied his steady growth as a subtle reader and vigorous, penetrating critic.”
-Morris Dickstein,author, Gates of Eden: American Culture in the Sixties
Review
“What Sorin has accomplished in this beautifully written, balanced and probing intellectual biography is the most complete picture we have of Howe, a portrait of how one Jewish intellectual and activist struggled daily to balance scholarship and politics and the life of the mind and a life of action. . . . Sorin has ably captured the life and passion of this most unusual man, whose commitment to democracy is a legacy still worth cherishing.”
-LA Times,
Review
“Gerald Sorin has written a lively and compelling biography of Irving Howe. A New York intellectual, Howe figured in most of the major and many of the minor debates of mid-twentieth-century America: socialism, modernism, Yiddish culture, civil rights, the new politics of postwar America, and the antiwar movement of the turbulent sixties. Howe spoke out forcefully and fearlessly, carving a place for intellectuals with moral vision. Sorin“s first biography deftly captures the complexity of the man and his eras.”
-Deborah Dash Moore,author of To the Golden Cities: Pursuing the American Jewish Dream in Miami and L.A.
Review
“Sorin does a solid and convincing job of chronicling Howe's life and times.”
-The Jewish Quarterly Review,
Review
“Irving Howe: A Life of Passionate Dissent offers such an intellectually detailed and conceptually animated account of Howes work. Sorin did an excellent job.”
-Magill's Literary Annual,
Review
“Irving Howe”s career, with its constantly shifting strands of political activism, literary commentary, and accessible Jewish scholarship, makes a great subject for an intellectual biography. Painstakingly researched and fluently written, Gerald Sorin’s book strikes just the right balance between sympathetic identification and critical distance. Making excellent use of interviews, memoirs, and unpublished letters, Sorin recreates the many significant issues that engaged Howe. He brings considerable drama to Howe’s gradual break with Marxist sectarianism, his shifting perspectives on socialism, his momentous reconnection to Jewish culture, his battles with the New Left, and the literary controversies that accompanied his steady growth as a subtle reader and vigorous, penetrating critic.”
“What Sorin has accomplished in this beautifully written, balanced and probing intellectual biography is the most complete picture we have of Howe, a portrait of how one Jewish intellectual and activist struggled daily to balance scholarship and politics and the life of the mind and a life of action. . . . Sorin has ably captured the life and passion of this most unusual man, whose commitment to democracy is a legacy still worth cherishing.”
“Gerald Sorin has written a lively and compelling biography of Irving Howe. A New York intellectual, Howe figured in most of the major and many of the minor debates of mid-twentieth-century America: socialism, modernism, Yiddish culture, civil rights, the new politics of postwar America, and the antiwar movement of the turbulent sixties. Howe spoke out forcefully and fearlessly, carving a place for intellectuals with moral vision. Sorin“s first biography deftly captures the complexity of the man and his eras.”
“Sorin does a solid and convincing job of chronicling Howe's life and times.”
“Irving Howe: A Life of Passionate Dissent offers such an intellectually detailed and conceptually animated account of Howe’s work. Sorin did an excellent job.”
Synopsis
An illuminating biography of an American intellectual and one of the century's most important public thinkers whose commitment to social reform was balanced by his love of fiction, poetry, baseball, and music.
Synopsis
View the Table of Contents. Read the Preface.
Sorin does a solid and convincing job of chronicling Howe's life and times. The Jewish Quarterly Review
Irving Howe: A Life of Passionate Dissent offers such an intellectually detailed and conceptually animated account of Howe's work. Sorin did an excellent job. Magill's Literary Annual
In this crisply written and well-conceived biography, Sorin captures the essence of these commitments one to Jewish culture, one to political activism, and one to literary criticism. Sorin offer s] a compelling, informative, and balanced account of a leading icon of the New York intellectuals. The Journal of American History
Sorin's biography summarizes Howe's important writings and covers his life in a carefully documented way.
American Jewish World
A New York Times Books for Summer Reading selection
Winner of the 2003 National Jewish Book Award for History
Sorin has given coherence to a complex life, showing that it was Howe's willingness to grapple with his own contradictions that made his intellectual journey so revealing of its place and time.
Times Literary Supplement
Sorin portrays Howe the tough political fighter alongside the brilliant writer and generous friend...Sorin has built a solid portrait of the writer and critic...he does a very good job of illuminating the relationship between politics and literature in Howe's intellectual life, particularly the way in which his socialism was informed by his reading of Yiddish literature.
New York Times Book Review
In this fine biography, Gerald Sorin shows us why we need more IrvingHowes today. Sorin traces the shifts and turns in a life that wound up creating one of America's most thoughtful leftists. A complexity of political views, a tension-ridden intellectual life (rather than academic careerism), an ability to criticize while remaining humane these are things we need a lot more of today. For reminding us of this, we have not just Irving Howe but Gerald Sorin to thank.
The Washington Post
What Sorin has accomplished in this beautifully written, balanced and probing intellectual biography is the most complete picture we have of Howe, a portrait of how one Jewish intellectual and activist struggled daily to balance scholarship and politics and the life of the mind and a life of action. . . . Sorin has ably captured the life and passion of this most unusual man, whose commitment to democracy is a legacy still worth cherishing.
Los Angeles Times
Sorin skillfully captures the illuminating fire of Howe's convictions, conflicts, and achievements. His] deep understanding of Howe's belief in intelligent public discourse...enables him not only to portray a great intellectual but also to encapsulate a key era in American politics.
Booklist
This is an important first step in re-examining a major intellectual and should serve as a springboard for more in-depth and balanced evaluations.
Publishers Weekly
Irving Howe: A Life of Passionate Dissent is a thoroughly researched, warmly delivered biography of a man who was the soul of mid-century intellectual life in America.
The Observer
Gerald Sorins intelligent, sympathetic, and engaging biography of Irving Howe is very fine intellectualhistory.
Eli Lederhendler, The Hebrew University
Well-researched biography . . . . Sorin seems to have spoken to everybody who knew Howe.
The Independent
Sorin, a professor at CUNY-New Paltz, excellently details the three guiding elements of Howe's life: politics, literature and Judaism. Flak Magazine
Sorin here presents a richly detailed life of Howe...an insightful and comprehensive biography.
Library Journal
By the time he died in 1993 at the age of 73, Irving Howe was one of the twentieth century's most important public thinkers. Deeply passionate, committed to social reform and secular Jewishness, ardently devoted to fiction and poetry, in love with baseball, music, and ballet, Howe wrote with such eloquence and lived with such conviction that his extraordinary work is now part of the canon of American social thought.
In the first comprehensive biography of Howe's life, historian Gerald Sorin brings us close to this man who rose from Jewish immigrant poverty in the 1930s to become one of the most provocative intellectuals of our time. Known most widely for his award-winning book World of Our Fathers, a rich portrayal of the East European Jewish experience in New York, Howe also won acclaim for his prodigious output of illuminating essays on American culture and as an indefatigable promoter of democratic socialism as can be seen in the pages of Dissent, the journal he edited for nearly forty years.
Deeply devoted to the ideal of democratic radicalism and true equality, Howe was constantly engaged in a struggle for decency and basic fairness in the face of social injustice. In the century of Auschwitz, the Gulag, andglobal inter-ethnic mass murder, it was difficult to sustain political certainties and take pride in one's humanity. To have lived a life of conviction and engagement in that era was a notable achievement. Irving Howe lived such a life and Gerald Sorin has done a masterful job of guiding us through it in all its passion and complexity.
Synopsis
A
New York Times “Books for Summer Reading” selection
Winner of the 2003 National Jewish Book Award for History
By the time he died in 1993 at the age of 73, Irving Howe was one of the twentieth centurys most important public thinkers. Deeply passionate, committed to social reform and secular Jewishness, ardently devoted to fiction and poetry, in love with baseball, music, and ballet, Howe wrote with such eloquence and lived with such conviction that his extraordinary work is now part of the canon of American social thought.
In the first comprehensive biography of Howes life, historian Gerald Sorin brings us close to this man who rose from Jewish immigrant poverty in the 1930s to become one of the most provocative intellectuals of our time. Known most widely for his award-winning book World of Our Fathers, a rich portrayal of the East European Jewish experience in New York, Howe also won acclaim for his prodigious output of illuminating essays on American culture and as an indefatigable promoter of democratic socialism as can be seen in the pages of Dissent, the journal he edited for nearly forty years.
Deeply devoted to the ideal of democratic radicalism and true equality, Howe was constantly engaged in a struggle for decency and basic fairness in the face of social injustice. In the century of Auschwitz, the Gulag, and global inter-ethnic mass murder, it was difficult to sustain political certainties and take pride in one's humanity. To have lived a life of conviction and engagement in that era was a notable achievement. Irving Howe lived such a life and Gerald Sorin has done a masterful job of guiding us through it in all its passion and complexity.
Synopsis
Over the past few years, the Hubble Space Telescope has provided us with images of astonishing clarity and detail, images that have revolutionized how scientists and incidental stargazers alike perceive our universe. Other space probes, such as Galileo and the recent Mars Surveyor, have similarly dazzled the world with photographic detail once unimaginable.
Empire of the Sun features a gallery of some of the most breathtaking space imagery ever assembled between two covers. Focusing on our solar system, the book offers dozens of dramatic, full page, full color images of crater farms on Venus, the spectacular rings of Saturn, Jupiter and its many moons, the swirling tail of the Hale-Bopp comet, spectacular sunflares, Mars, Neptune, icy cosmic debris, and more. Detailed text accompanies each image, providing background information and a roadmap to orient the reader.
John Gribbin and Simon Goodwin have collaborated on two previous illustrated volumes featuring Hubble images, both of which have been international bestsellers and have been translated into several languages.
About the Author
Gerald Sorin is Distinguished Professor of History and Director of Jewish Studies at SUNY New Paltz. His most recent book is Tradition Transformed: The Jewish Experience in America.