"Continuing the story that began in his widely praised Boston Boy, Nat Hentoff in Speaking Freely guides us through more than forty years of his life in journalism, a career as various as his passions, and follows our social history from the civil rights and antiwar movements to the most incendiary battles (such as abortion) of the present day. Hentoff first evokes New York in the fifties, when he wrote for the jazz magazine Down Beat and came to know some of the most talented jazzmen of all time--Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, and Dizzy Gillespie, to name only a few. He looks back to his apprenticeship under George Seldes and I. F. Stone, two unyieldingly independent journalists whom he credits with charting his direction in the field. And he recounts his associations with a wide array of Americans, from Malcolm X, who was a friend, to Louis Farrakhan, who has labeled Hentoff "the Antichrist" ; from Adlai Stevenson to John Cardinal O'Connor; and from the "utterly singular" editor of The New Yorker, William Shawn, to uncelebrated heroes far afield from Manhattan and Washington. As a staff writer for the Village Voice and a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, Hentoff has gained a reputation as one of the nation's most respected, uncompromising, and controversial writers on civil liberties and on the difficult issues and wide-ranging forms of injustice manifest in our age." -- Provided by Publisher.

Twelve distinguished historians, political theorists, and literary critics present new perspectives on multiculturalism in this important collection. Central to the essays (all but one is appearing in print for the first time) is the question of how the Jewish experience can challenge the conventional polar opposition between a majority "white monoculture" and a marginalized "minorities of color multiculture." This book takes issue with such a dichotomy by showing how experiences of American Jews can undo conventional categories. Neither a complaint against multiculturalism by Jews who feel excluded from it, nor a celebration of multiculturalism as the solution to contemporary Jewish problems, Insider/Outsider explores how the Jews' anomalous status opens up multicultural history in different and interesting directions. The goal of the editors has been to transcend the notion of "comparative victimology" and to show the value of a narrative that does not rely on competing histories of persecution. Readers can discover in these essays arguments that will broaden their understanding of Jewish identity and multicultural theory and will enliven the contemporary debate about American culture generally. Twelve distinguished historians, political theorists, and literary critics present new perspectives on multiculturalism in this important collection. Central to the essays (all but one is appearing in print for the first time) is the question of how the Jewish experience can challenge the conventional polar opposition between a majority "white monoculture" and a marginalized "minorities of color multiculture." This book takes issue with such a dichotomy by showing how experiences of American Jews can undo conventional categories. Neither a complaint against multiculturalism by Jews who feel excluded from it, nor a celebration of multiculturalism as the solution to contemporary Jewish problems, Insider/Outsider explores how the Jews' anomalous status opens up multicultural history in different and interesting directions. The goal of the editors has been to transcend the notion of "comparative victimology" and to show the value of a narrative that does not rely on competing histories of persecution. Readers can discover in these essays arguments that will broaden their understanding of Jewish identity and multicultural theory and will enliven the contemporary debate about American culture generally.

“It is frightening to think the [Jon Wiener] teaches history at a university ... ”—Jacques Derrida “Wiener takes the modern university as his beat, and covers it like a police reporter ... Wiener’s mean streets are the think tank, the scholarly symposium, and the faculty lounge. And when he’s had enough of this academic low life, he listens to Elvis, Springsteen and the Beatles. He even listens to Frank Sinatra.”—John Leonard “In this book, Jon Wiener demonstrates his great skill as guerrilla sharpshooter in the forty-year war that the National Security State has been conducting against the American people. These reports from the field—the resistance—illuminate Nixon and Watergate as never before, reveal in fascinating detail the turbulence within Academe, invoke pity if not awe for that unexpected victim of state, Frank Sinatra.”—Gore Vidal “Wiener is good at spotting, and blasting, paranoid fantasy and incompetence in high (and low) places and his range of targets is impressively wide ... [his] surveys are lucid, trenchant and brief.”— Observer

. . . Mr. Itzkoff places most of the blame for America's alleged intellectual decline on what he sees as an economically and intellectually elite cast of misguided liberals. They have isolated themselves from American society, he says, by their paternalistic treatment of the underclass, by discounting the importance of traditional family values and by failing to raise enough bright children to sustain national competence. The New York Times Book Review Few doubt that the United States has slipped from its longstanding eminence as the world's wealthiest and most productive nation. The problem for the past 30 years has been the diagnosis of both the decline and then the cure. Literally trillions of dollars have been expended in futile programs to stanch the hemorrhaging of our economic wealth, jobs, educational achievement, and cultural elan. Itzkoff argues that we will never stop the fall until we understand our real national dilemma. This is the decline in our national intelligence profile: fewer citizens of high intelligence, educational potential, and economic productivity. These ideas are taboo. Itzkoff, however, insists that these are the facts, and they must be examined. In this book, he lays out the available evidence for our social disintegration and suggests a rational program of policy initiatives that would begin to restore us to what we were as recently as 1955--the great hope of the world.

Stavans (Latin American and Latino culture, Amherst College, Massachusetts) offers an extended essay on Mexican poet and intellectual Paz (1914-98). Earlier versions have been published in a variety of periodicals and anthologies. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Anka Muhlstein's lively biography, translated by Teresa Waugh, introduces American readers to Astolphe de Custine, a passionate literary figure, a poet, playwright, essayist, traveler, aristocrat and homosexual adventurer. Against the fascinating background of early-19th-century France, Anka Muhlstein presents the gifted if at times deplorable Custine with vivacity, elegance, and insight. It is a splendid introduction to the Marquis and his world and to his famous 1839 tour of autocratic Russia -- Daniel Aaron. Briliant, visionary, beautiful Astolphe -- man of letters and man of society -- finally gets his biography . . . -- French elle Magazine ... -- Amazon

The First collection of essays to address issues concerning lesbian and gay studies in the undergraduate classroom, Professions of Desire will challenge teachers and students of literature with new materials, new approaches, and new ideas. Professions of Desire includes examples of lesbian and gay critical analysis and thoughtful discussions about what it means to be lesbian, gay, or queer in the classroom

The site of a thriving literary tradition, Washington, DC, has been the home to many of our nation's most acclaimed writers. From the city's founding to the beginnings of modernism, literary luminaries including Walt Whitman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Henry Adams, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston have lived and worked at their craft in our nation's capital. In A Literary Guide to Washington, DC, Kim Roberts offers a guide to the city's rich literary history. Part walking tour, part anthology, A Literary Guide to Washington, DC is organized into five sections, each corresponding to a particularly vibrant period in Washington's literary community. Starting with the city's earliest years, Roberts examines writers such as Hasty-Pudding poet Joel Barlow and "Star-Spangled Banner" lyricist Francis Scott Key before moving on to the Civil War and Reconstruction and touching on the lives of authors such as Charlotte Forten Grimké and James Weldon Johnson. She wraps up her tour with World War I and the Jazz Age, which brought to the city some writers at the forefront of modernism, including the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, Sinclair Lewis. The book's stimulating tours cover downtown, the LeDroit Park and Shaw neighborhoods, Lafayette Square, and the historic U Street district, bringing the history of the city to life in surprising ways. Written for tourists, literary enthusiasts, amateur historians, and armchair travelers, A Literary Guide to Washington, DC offers a cultural tour of our nation's capital through a literary lens.

For almost twenty years, Ilan Stavans—described by the Washington Post as "Latin America’s liveliest and boldest critic and most innovative cultural enthusiast"—has interviewed path-breaking intellectuals and artists in a wide range of media. As host of the critically acclaimed PBS series La Plaza, he interviews guests on pressing issues that affect the Western Hemisphere today, asking hard-hitting questions on immigration, religion, bilingualism, race, and democracy. This book collects for the first time in one volume Stavans’s most provocative and enlightening interviews with Hispanics from both sides of the Rio Grande. Spontaneous and surprising, these conversations reflect Latino life in the United States in all its facets. Among the more than two dozen selections, Edward James Olmos talks about Hispanics in Hollywood; John Leguizamo describes how he shapes a stage show; author Richard Rodriguez reflects on his gang background; Esmeralda Santiago takes on the Puerto Rican stereotype; and Piri Thomas shares thoughts on the writing of Down These Mean Streets. "A conversation is a tango," writes Stavans, "for it takes two to dance it." Conversations with Ilan Stavans invites readers to catch the rhythm and enjoy these unique meetings of minds.

Ammiel Alcalay's groundbreaking work, After Jews and Arabs, published in 1993, redrew the geographic, political, cultural, and emotional map of relations between Jews and Arabs in the Levantine/Mediterranean world over a thousand-year period. Based on over a decade of research and fieldwork in many disciplines-including history and historiography; anthropology, ethnography, and ethnomusicology; political economy and geography; linguistics; philosophy; and the history of science and technology-the book presented a radically different perspective than that presented by received opinion. Given the radical and iconoclastic nature of Alcalay's perspective, After Jews and Arabs met great resistance in attempts to publish it. Though completed and already circulating in 1989, it didn't appear until 1993. In addition, when the book was published, there wasn't enough space to include its original bibliography, a foundational part of the project. A Bibliography for After Jews and Arabs presents the original bibliography, as completed in 1992, without changes, as a glimpse into the historical record of a unique scholarly, political, poetic, and cultural journey. The bibliography itself had roots in research begun in the late 1970s and demonstrates a very wide arc. In addition to the bibliography, we include three accompanying texts here. In "Behind the Scenes: Before After Jews and Arabs, " Alcalay takes us behind the closed doors of the academic process, reprinting the original reader reports and his detailed rebuttals, and in "A Bibliography for After Jews and Arabs A Brief Introduction," Alcalay contextualizes his own path to the work he undertook, in methodological, historical, and political terms. Also included is "A Poetics of Bibliography." Poet, novelist, translator, critic, and scholar Ammiel Alcalay teaches at Queens College and The Graduate Center, CUNY. His books include After Jews and Arabs, Keys to the Garden, Memories of Our Future, Islanders, and neither wit nor gold: from then. A 10th-anniversary edition of from the warring factions, a book-length poem dedicated to Srebrenica, and a book of essays, a little history, came out in 2013. a little history also came out in a Portuguese translation with Editor Lumme, São Paolo in 2019. During the wars in ex-Yugoslavia, he was the primary translator of texts from Bosnia, and translations include Sarajevo Blues and Nine Alexandrias by poet Semezdin Mehmedinovic, as well as works by journalist Zlatko Dizdarevic, and many others. Alcalay is the General Editor of Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative, a series of student and guest-edited archival texts emerging from New American Poetry, and he was the recipient of a 2017 Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award for this work.

In Strong on Music Vera Brodsky Lawrence uses the diaries of lawyer and music lover George Templeton Strong as a jumping-off point from which to explore every aspect of New York City's musical life in the mid-nineteenth century. This third and final volume ranges across opera, orchestral and chamber music, blackface minstrels, military bands, church choirs, and even concert saloons. Among the many striking scenes vividly portrayed in Repercussions are the rapturous reception of Verdi's Ballo in maschera in 1861; the impact of the Civil War on New York's music scene, from theaters closing as their musicians enlisted to the performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at every possible occasion; and open-air concerts in the developing Central Park. Throughout, Lawrence mines a treasure trove of primary source materials including daily newspapers, memoirs, city directories, and architectural drawings. Indispensable for scholars, Repercussions will also fascinate music fans with its witty writing and detailed descriptions of the cultural life of America's first metropolis. Formerly a concert pianist, Vera Brodsky Lawrence spent the last third of her life as a historian of American music (she died in 1996). She was editor of The Piano Works of Louis Moreau Gottschalk and The Complete Works of Scott Joplin . On Volume 1: "A marvelous book. There is nothing like it in the literature of American music."—Harold C. Schonberg, New York Times Book Review On Volume 2: "A monumental achievement."—Victor Fell Yellin, Opera Quarterly

When Michael Dukakis accused George H. W. Bush of being the "Joe Isuzu of American Politics" during the 1988 presidential campaign, he asserted in a particularly American tenor the near-ancient idea that lying and politics (and perhaps advertising, too) are inseparable, or at least intertwined. Our response to this phenomenon, writes the renowned intellectual historian Martin Jay, tends to vacillate often impotently between moral outrage and amoral realism. In The Virtues of Mendacity, Jay resolves to avoid this conventional framing of the debate over lying and politics by examining what has been said in support of, and opposition to, political lying from Plato and St. Augustine to Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss. Jay proceeds to show that each philosopher s argument corresponds to a particular conception of the political realm, which decisively shapes his or her attitude toward political mendacity. He then applies this insight to a variety of contexts and questions about lying and politics. Surprisingly, he concludes by asking if lying in politics is really all that bad. The political hypocrisy that Americans in particular periodically decry may be, in Jay s view, the best alternative to the violence justified by those who claim to know the truth. -- Amazon.com.

After World War II, the center of gravity for world Jewry moved outside Europe. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, large-scale emigration and postwar assimilation resulted in a disheartening contraction of European Jewry, with the notable exception of France. Today, Europe's Jews number only 17 percent of the world Jewish population. At the beginning of this century, they comprised 83 percent and were the center of the modern Jewish experience. In a radical reversal, former peripheries became the centers, notably American Jewry, the largest and most dynamic of the Diaspora communities, and the State of Israel. An examination of the altered place of Europe and its future role in Jewish history is long overdue.In Jewish Centers and Peripheries, S. Han Troen presents evidence of cultural renewal and community reorganization - both internally driven and supported by Israeli-and American-based Jewish organizations - which promise to assure the continuity and vitality of Jewish life in Europe. This volume presents the contributions of scholars, senior community professionals, lay leaders, and former diplomats from Europe, Israel, and America, including Yosef Gorny, Gabriel Sheffer, Rashid Kaplanov, Barry Kosmin, Ralph Goldman, Jean-Jacques Wahl, Israel Finestein, David Patterson, and Daniel Elazar.These original and thoughtful contributions examine dynamic relationships among European, American, and Israeli communities at times bringing personal knowledge of significant events pertinent to understanding these relationships. Collectively they suggest that present conditions are ripe for the reemergence of European Jewry, though on a scale much diminished from that of the pre-Holocaust period. Moreover, the prospects for the rejuvenation of European Jewry mirror the possibilities for Jewish continuity everywhere. Jewish Centers and Peripheries is a strikingly informative assessment of the condition of world Jewry at the close of the century.

After World War II, the center of gravity for world Jewry moved outside Europe. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, large-scale emigration and postwar assimilation resulted in a disheartening contraction of European Jewry, with the notable exception of France. Today, Europe's Jews number only 17 percent of the world Jewish population. At the beginning of this century, they comprised 83 percent and were the center of the modern Jewish experience. In a radical reversal, former peripheries became the centers, notably American Jewry, the largest and most dynamic of the Diaspora communities, and the State of Israel. An examination of the altered place of Europe and its future role in Jewish history is long overdue. In Jewish Centers and Peripheries, S. Han Troen presents evidence of cultural renewal and community reorganization—both internally driven and supported by Israeli-and American-based Jewish organizations—which promise to assure the continuity and vitality of Jewish life in Europe. This volume presents the contributions of scholars, senior community professionals, lay leaders, and former diplomats from Europe, Israel, and America, including Yosef Gorny, Gabriel Sheffer, Rashid Kaplanov, Barry Kosmin, Ralph Goldman, Jean-Jacques Wahl, Israel Finestein, David Patterson, and Daniel Elazar. These original and thoughtful contributions examine dynamic relationships among European, American, and Israeli communities at times bringing personal knowledge of significant events pertinent to understanding these relationships. Collectively they suggest that present conditions are ripe for the reemergence of European Jewry, though on a scale much diminished from that of the pre-Holocaust period. Moreover, the prospects for the rejuvenation of European Jewry mirror the possibilities for Jewish continuity everywhere. Jewish Centers and Peripheries is a strikingly informative assessment of the condition of world Jewry at the close of the century.

" . . . scrupulous, fair-minded and richly-detailed study . . . the book charts one of the most remarkable intellectual careers of the 20th century's latter half. . . . What is most heartening about Mr. Alexander's biography is its exemplary civility and nuance in discussing ideas across the lines of political difference." ―Nathan Glick, Washington Times "Anyone interested in Howe's varied career, and the historical context that has given it its particular shape―American radicalism, the Cold War and anticommunism, the New Left, literary modernism, Jewish life―will profit handsomely from reading Alexander's respectful book." ―Wilson Quarterly "Edward Alexander's captivating study of Irving Howe is illuminating and scrupulous; it is also temperate, generous, and deeply fair-minded. If Howe were alive, he would thank the author―and even now, in Paradise, he is surely doing so (while hotly continuing the discussion)." ―Cynthia Ozick " . . . a singular achievement." ―Jerusalem Post " . . . a masterpiece" ―National Jewish Post and Opinion ". . . meticulous scholarship, felicitous writing style and a literate feistiness." ―Chicago Jewish Star "An excellent work of insight and criticism, recommended for academic libraries." ―Library Journal "An insightful, balanced contribution . . ." ―Booklist "Edward Alexander's estimable intellectual biography . . . studiously avoids both undue sentimentality and overly harsh censure." ―Sanford Pinsker, Philadelphia Inquirer "Edward Alexander's well-informed and engaging portrait of Irving Howe does full justice to the complexities of mind and the political passions of one of this country's leading intellectuals. This bracing, perceptive study honors Howe's admirable career by treating it with the same high degree of moral seriousness that characterized Howe's own work at its best." ―Alvin H. Rosenfeld Irving Howe, author of World of Our Fathers, the prize-winning history of American Jewish immigrant culture, and founding editor of the influential magazine Dissent, was for over 50 years a dominant―and controversial―figure in American intellectual life. Through a clear and eloquent study of Howe's politics, writings, and thought, Edward Alexander constructs a sympathetic yet critical intellectual biography of this complex individual.

Analyzes the works of Canadian Jewish poet A.M. Klein (1909-1972) written in the late 1920s-early 1950s, reading them as a combative poetic response to history. Klein's early poetry in "Hath Not a Jew, " composed against the background of the rise of antisemitism in Europe and in Montreal, his hometown, reveals his deep identification with Jewish tradition and his disillusionment with the humanist inability to confront Nazism. Deeply affected by news of the Holocaust, he wrote his mock epic "The Hitleriad" in 1942, in which he presented Hitler's ugliness, mediocrity, and meanness of spirit. This seems an attempt to demystify Hitler, paralleled perhaps by Arendt's concept of the banality of evil. "The Rocking Chair, " a collection of poems, and the novel "The Second Scroll" represent Klein's attempt to come to terms with the post-Holocaust world. Ch. 4 (pp. 61-80), "The Hitleriad: Against the Silence of the Apocalypse, " appeared in "Studies in American Jewish Literature" 9 (1990).

What constitutes American thought is obviously tooelusive to be encompassed by any one writer or groupof writers. Th e best that any attempt at intellectual historycan achieve is to indicate some of its traces in writtenrecords. This volume represents the eff orts of oneof America's leading philosophers to do just that. He isuniquely qualifi ed to do so, as his contemporary SidneyHook well understood. As Cohen noted, most of what people say and writeis dominated by linguistic forms or habits. Thus thedominance of the traditions and habits that make up theEnglish language has been the strongest single infl uence infashioning American thought as very largely a province ofBritish thought--despite the Declaration of Independenceand two wars. Cohen describes how American thoughtdeveloped from its British roots. It deals with refl ectivethought, i.e. with thought that is conscious of its problems,of its methods and of the widest general bearings of theresults obtained so far. Th e diverse subjects discussedrange from religious thinking to the scientifi c, and fromthe legal tradition to literary criticism. Among the important figures Cohen assesses areDewey, Santayana, Holmes, Brandeis, Whitehead, James,and Royce as well as those of men less well-known butsometimes equally infl uential. In its scope and insight,this book takes its own unique and important place inAmerican thought. Morris Raphael Cohen was a memberof the fabled department of philosophyat the City College of New York between1912 and 1938. He wrote numerous booksand articles including A Preface to Logic, ADreamer's Journey, Refl ections of a WonderingJew , and Law and Social Order . Felix S. Cohen , the son of the author,edited this volume. He was a lawyer andscholar known for his work in legal philosophy and Indian lawand policy. He worked in the solicitor's offi ce in the Departmentof the Interior under Franklin D. Roosevelt and is the authorof both The Handbook of Federal Indian Law and Readings inJurisprudence and Legal Philosophy .