Breaking Ranks: A Political Memoir

by Norman Podhoretz

Book Overview

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060133783
• ISBN13: 9780060133788
• Release Date: January 1979
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 375 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.

Customer Reviews

He heard the sound of his own drummer

It takes guts to do what Norman Podhoretz did. He looked at Reality and saw that the liberal left political and social views of all his friends were mistaken. He saw that the knee-jerk condemnations of the United States which came from the left were wrongheaded, and in some ways contemptible. He had to 'break ranks' with a whole world of friends including those who were the 'Family' the intellectual elite not only of New York but in a sense of America. Among these people were Jason Epstein, Norman Mailer , Hannah Arendt, Alfred Kazin , and scores of others. Mailer goes into a lot of detail here in telling the story but his fundamental action was a courageous one. As editor of the important journal 'Commentary' he waged a War of Ideas in defense of the values he believed in, and the political positions he saw as correct. This is an important book for understanding the way both intellectual and political struggles take place among the makers- and - shakers of American life.