The Other American the Life of Michael Harrington

by Maurice Isserman

Book Overview

"Most Americans first heard of Michael Harrington with the publication of The Other America, his seminal book on American poverty. Isserman expertly tracks Harrington's beginnings in the Catholic Worke"

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1586480367
• ISBN13: 9781586480363
• Release Date: March 2001
• Publisher: PublicAffairs
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Pragmatism or Principle?

This is the story of Michael Harrington's struggle for relevance. He left the Catholic Worker in search of power to effect social change. A democratic socialist committed to social justice, he had to walk a tightrope between pragmatism and principle. Without selling out his socialist principles, he had to make forays into the Democratic party, with mixed results. He never held a position of real power, so his books and articles are his chief legacies. They were influential in nudging Democrats to the left, thus effecting social programs that made a difference in the lives of some people. This book is a thorough and well documented portrayal of his many ideological changes--at one time he called himself a Republican!--and his faction fighting within the Left. It gives you an idea of what it was like to be a Socialist in a society that had little tolerance for socialism.

Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

This is a well-honed biography of a man and his persistence in an idea, and the trials of that venture through thick and thin, against all odds. Harrington is a unique witness to the tribulations of real social change, and the living question, what is the fate of the capitalist circumstance? A persistent critic of the Bolshevik episode, his question endures. He is suddenly revealed here both in his quiet heroism, and as slighly skewed or 'out of phase' with respect to the sudden upsurge of the sixties left, yet his endurance and vision remain at the end as a permanent challenge to a system of overwhelming force, against which easy change is forever substracted. It is this factor in the account that stands out, the studied contrast of the political background, as a prism revealing the reality of liberal politics as it is.

Thoughtful Look At Socialist Activist Michael Harrington

Anyone familiar with the tortured history of American socialism can appreciate this fine and pensive biography of one of its leading 20th century luminaries, fabled socialist and humanist author Michael Harrington. Noted historian Maurice Isserman ("America Divided"-see my review) delivers a wonderful account that passionately and comprehensively covers the long and eventful arc of Harrington's amazingly productive and prolific writing and academic careers as well as his exhaustive involvements in socialist politics and social activism. A stream of notables ranging from folksingers Peter, Paul and Mary, SDS's Tom Hayden, intellectuals like Irving Howe, and political figures like George Meany rub shoulders with Harrington, and we come to see his personal intellectual and political journey toward a better and fairer America as one with which we can each take common cause. Educated in Massachusetts at Holy Cross, Harrington adopted the Jesuit perspective of enlightened social engagement early, and soon found himself rejecting his own comfortable middle class background to work among the urban poor. According to Isserman, it was inevitable for Harrington to act on his own antipathy to the gross materialism that surrounded him, and to extend this distaste for those living in luxury amid the squalor that surrounded them to his own philosophy and politics. Indeed, his own intellectual and philosophical journey provides the reader with a splendid portrait of the nature of American socialism in the middle of this century, and we find ourselves delving into remote nooks and crannies of the movement as Harrington makes his philosophical odyssey toward his own mature view of an open and democratically based contemporary socialism. Along the way we learn a lot of important details about socialism as well as about how politics works in America. One at times becomes a bit winded at Harrington's sheer level of energy and capacity for work, for he sometimes seems to be everywhere doing everything at once. And it is this frenetic pace and sheer level of productive energy that one comes to admire in Harrington. In this day of self-satisfied torpor and delirium tremors from over-consumption, it is interesting to read about a man whose life was centered so energetically and so passionately around moral imperatives and ideas. Whether discussing his failure to successfully meld his old-style moral socialism with the new-left politics of young mavericks like Tom Hayden or his failure to actively engage the American Socialist Party in the debate over the war in Vietnam, Isserman brings Harrington and his times to vibrant life in these pages. Of course, it was the publication of his overwhelmingly successful and influential book, "The Other America" that made Harrington a permanent fixture on the American scene, and everyone from John F. Kennedy to Bill Clinton have made reference to the importance of the book in forming their own perspectives regarding poverty in Ameri

Michael Harrington Still Matters

Mr. Isserman's biography is neither sentimental (but it is written with plenty of sentiment) nor uncritical in its appraisal of the late Michael Harrington. This book is not intended to answer the question, 'What is socialism?'; however, because of the amazing amount of details concerning the socialists (obviously, especially Harrington), their ideas, party dissolutions and rebirths, one will be quite prepared for further study of Harrington and socialism. Isserman has an uncanny ability to use narative to reflect the pace of events -- especially when desciribing how quickly the 'war on poverty' was started and lost by the duplicity of Democrats and Republicans -- he picks up the pace of his words he needs to and uses more reflective words when he needs to. If one is not interested in learning about Micahel Harrington, Isserman is a good story teller who's book can be read for the narrative alone.

A First-rate Biography

Maurice Isserman has written several books focused on the American left, principally the Communist Party. In this book, he focuses on the late Michael Harrington, "America's foremost democratic socialist." The book is highly successful in giving us a look at Harrington the man, although anyone interested in a history of the democratic socialist movement may be somewhat disappointed. Isserman fills many gaps in Harringon's two semi-autobiographical books. While not completely impartial (Isserman was a member of Harrington's Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, and clearly likes his subject), the author neither fawns nor engages in iconography. Taken together with Robert Gorman's book, and Harrington's own work, Isserman's biography is as comprehensive a picture of Harrington as I suspect we're likely to get anytime soon. Highly recommended.