The Twilight of the Intellectuals: Culture and Politics in the Era of the Cold War

by Hilton Kramer

Book Overview

In this provocative and engaging collection of his essays and reviews, Mr. Kramer explores, in effect, the intellectual history of the cold war and its divisive impact on our politics and culture. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1566633117
• ISBN13: 9781566633116
• Release Date: September 2000
• Publisher: Ivan R. Dee Publisher
• Length: 376 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Caveat

Although I have a great interest in the topic, and I found its title promising, I could not bear myself to finish this book. Besides acknowledging the acritical position of some intellectuals toward the Soviet Union and Stalin, I did not find much of interest in this book. Kramer's book is another exemplar of the usual tirade of rightwing intellectuals against the left and liberals in general. I found particularly deplorable Kramer's intend to rehabilitate the memory of Joseph McCarthy (See "The Blacklist Revised"). In this regard, even Ann Coulter is more refreshing.

Got my eyes on you baby cause you dance so good

With this book, Hilton Kramer, a Cold-War anti-Communist Liberal of the last half of the 20th century, fills in many historical gaps for younger seekers of intellectual purity. While the book does a credible job explaining shifting differences of cold-war opinion amongst leftist academics and ideologues, it begs us to consider how otherwise intelligent people could continue to support tyranny in the face of such incontrovertible evidence of its evil. Kramer cites the verbal and media assault on anyone daring to question the tenets of the Cold War Socialist Left. He outlines the criticisms of Alexander Solzhinitsyn by George Steiner, the diatribes of Lillian Hellman, that staunch supporter of Stalinism, and the scurrilousness of Mary McCarthy, the pro-Hanoi apologist. He shines light on the Communists in Hollywood and the media and the many ways in which they aided the Soviet cause. Starting with the intellectual rejection of Whittaker Chambers, in favor of the Soviet spy Alger Hiss, we are treated to a travesty of heresies that have yet to be renounced by their proponents. Kramer points out that Bard College today has an academic chair in their Humanities department in Alger Hiss's name. By the same token, women's studies departments at many universities still use "I, Rigoberta Minchu" as a text even while knowing that she made the story up. Current Writers who have kept on with this tradition of making it up as they go along, in the name of the class warrior socialist cause, are Mike Barnicle of the Boston Globe, Stephen Glass of the New Republic, Joseph Ellis of Mount Hollyoke and Janet Cooke of the Washington Post; and these are just the ones who got caught. Even though they are a tribe of diminishing numbers, the shrillness of their followers is reminiscent of the Pod People in "the Invasion of the Body Snatchers". They still make their presence known in the universities, worshippers of their secular religion, their social studies professor's a fit for the over 50 white guy demographic of those remaining listeners of Pacifica Radio. Even with Cold War Left intellectualism "water over the dam", we still stand witness to the twilight of the intellectual era while we watch a continued post-modernist assault on free market values. In the war of ideas, they still fight on the side of our political enemies, and their fight is as relentless as it is prolonged. The saving grace is that their numbers continue to dwindle as their message becomes ever more diluted and confused. We can only sit in awe as we watch them "rage against the machine" and tilt at the windmills of free market capitalism. The Ruckus society, Greenpeace, PETA and Friends of the Earth come to mind.The book outlines the details of urgent political debates that tore apart friendships and sundered institutions. Kramer gives life to these issues that animated controversies, but ended in the triumph of a new sensibility over modernism, what he calls a strange fate for libera

A great book!

This book piqued my interest to such a degree that I read it in two sittings. I loved the section on Susan Sontag. I've never been able to understand her which has always annoyed me because it's terrible to feel like your out of your depth with somebody you know is a total weasal. Kramer does a great job articulating her ideas so that I can see them for what they are. He introduces me to many people I've never heard of, namely Whitaker Chambers (what a fascinating character). To read a book written from the perspective of a non-Leftist thinking person is always a treat. A+

gone to flowers, everyone...

At any college in the 1960s, there was no more ominous presence than that of Jean Paul Sartre. He was an expressionless obsidian Buddha high on on a mountaintop, a force of nature, a thinker greater than nature itself. Sooner or later he would tip over and crush you as you dozed off in Contemporary Crusades or the Histrionics of the Lower Classes or in whatever class his cosmic status was accepted a priori. Thank you, Hilton Kramer for your marvelous book. Your chapter called "The Flowers on Sartre's Grave" has put Sartre in perspective for me. I believed in 1965 that intellectuals were supposed to like communism (a distant communism, it turns out), but how did Sartre ever subsume his theoties of individualism to such a hideous cause? Apparently even this Buddha made mistakes. Mr. Kramer makes it clear that Sartre was an apologist for the worst tyrannies in modern history. It is truly liberating to read Kramer's critique of all the many anti-anti-communists whose writings have littered the second half of the 20th century. If Joseph McCarthy had not existed, the anti-anti-communists would have had to create him. Look at how this continues today with the snubbing of Elian (excuse me---Elia) Kazan at Oscars night.At any rate, this book clarified a great deal about Sidney Hook, Lionel Trilling, and other critics whose direction and magnitude were always so mysterious to me. It was very revealing to see how these men, just by suggesting that communism had faults, drew the bitter ire of so many American writers. To me, the place of honor that Hilton Kramer holds in literary history is due largely to the fact that (thanks to Tom Wolfe in "The Intelligent Co-ed's Guide" I know this) he was the only American Intellectual who, in 1976, sang the praises of the great scourge of socialism, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. Five stars!

Excellent

I found this collection of essays to be outstanding, yet depressing - outstanding because of the author's scintilating portraits of the people he writes about and depressing because of most of the people he writes about were clearly as awful as they were arrogant.Additionally, his essay on biographies of the 'Bloomsbury' group changed the way I look at literary biographies generally - the reason for reading an author's bio is to enhance your understanding of their works, not to readgossip about someone who may now be ignored as an author, but who has become 'famous for being famous'.