The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left From the 1930s to the 1980s - Softcover

A masterwork of scholarly inquiry, based upon vast research of primary sources including interviews with over one hundred informants, and will no doubt prove to be the definitive study. Wald glides adroitly between multiple roles of intellectual and social historian, political theorist, and literary critic; his own engaging literary style finds expression in the tightly drawn biographical sketches that he weaves gracefully into the larger fabric. This is Marxist scholarship at its best.--Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences Wald's grasp of the ideological twists and turns of his protagonists is first-rate ... His story has an epic sweep.--D.D. Guttenplan, Village Voice Wald has written a valuable book about the ''political trajectory'' of this country's leading intellectuals over the past 50 years. It is well-researched, insightful and extremely opinionated. It deserves a wide audience.--The New York Times Book Review

The New York Intellectuals is an absorbing account of an often misunderstood chapter in the history of literary radicalism and the Marxist intellectual tradition in the United States. It is enriched by more than one hundred personal interviews as well as critical interpretations of novels and short stories depicting the inner life of the group.