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
“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.”
Review
“Sorin does a solid and convincing job of chronicling Howe's life and times.”
-The Jewish Quarterly Review,
Review
Valencia makes moving reference throughout to the parents and community activists who labored on behalf of their children and, in the process, shows them to be trailblazers deserving of their own biographical treatments. In the meantime, this book provides a solid, reliable account of a crucial chapter in the history of Mexican Americans-and, indeed, of the United States itself.-The Journal of Southern History,
Review
“The longstanding rap on Latino parents, particularly Mexican Americans, is that they are too passive, an old trope from movies and the iconic peasant taking his siesta under a palm tree. But as Valencias detailed book shows, these parents have been resisting school perfidy and indifference for well over a century, even against courts and school boards that have been downright hostile to their claims. I found it fascinating reading, and learned a great deal, even though I thought I had known or read all these cases. I was wrong. He has corrected this record in an authoritative fashion that has set the bar for the rest of us.”-Michael A. Olivas,editor of “Colored Men” and “Hombres Aquí”
Review
“A highly detailed catalogue of all the relevant lawsuits about educational equality and Mexican American students.”
-Law and Politics Book Review,
Review
“In this book Valencia effectively weaves together a wide variety of large and small, famous and forgotten, Chicano legal challenges to educational discrimination and ties the entire corpus of activism around the concept of critical race theory. This book is successful as a reference work and as a synthesis of critical race scholarship on the varied, confusing tangle of Mexican American educational litigation. . . . Valencias study offers enterprising historians myriad ways in which to engage the increasingly paramount subjects of Mexican American education, race, poverty, and immigration. In this original and laboriously researched book, Valencia successfully communicates the size and complexity of the Mexican American communitys quest for better schools—and how much more is left for historians to do on this important yet neglected topic.”
-American Historical Review,
Review
“In this necessary and foundational resource, Valencia recovers a legacy of resistance to educational inequalities and shatters myths that claim Chicanas/os dont value education.”
-,
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
In 1925 Adolfo ‘Babe Romo, a Mexican American rancher in Tempe, Arizona, filed suit against his school district on behalf of his four young children, who were forced to attend a markedly low-quality segregated school, and won. But
Romo v. Laird was just the beginning. Some sources rank Mexican Americans as one of the most poorly educated ethnic groups in the United States.
Chicano Students and the Courts is a comprehensive look at this communitys long-standing legal struggle for better schools and educational equality. Through the lens of critical race theory, Valencia details why and how Mexican American parents and their children have been forced to resort to legal action.
Chicano Students and the Courts engages the many areas that have spurred Mexican Americans to legal battle, including school segregation, financing, special education, bilingual education, school closures, undocumented students, higher education financing, and high-stakes testing, ultimately situating these legal efforts in the broader scope of the Mexican American communitys overall struggle for the right to an equal education. Extensively researched, and written by an author with firsthand experience in the courtroom as an expert witness in Mexican American education cases, this volume is the first to provide an in-depth understanding of the intersection of litigation and education vis-à-vis Mexican Americans.
About the Author
Richard R. Valencia is Professor of Educational Psychology, Faculty Associate of the Center for Mexican American Studies, and Fellow in the Lee Hage Jamail Regents Chair in Education at The University of Texas at Austin. His books include Chicano School Failure and Success.