Norman Podhoretz and Commentary Magazine by Nathan Abrams

Norman Podhoretz and Commentary Magazine by Nathan Abrams

Struggling for Empire is a unique study of the neoconservative movement's leading thinker and magazine: Norman Podhoretz and Commentary. In this book, Nathan Abrams examines the origins, rise, and fall of neoconservatism and argues that much of what has been said about it in the last six years is the result of willful distortion and exaggeration by both the neocons and their opponents. The main goal of this critical and balanced survey is to dispel misconceptions of what the much widely used and abused term neocon actually refers to. Norman Podhoretz (b. 1930) was one of the neocon movement's leading intellectuals. With ten books and 35 years as Editor of the magazine Commentary, Podhoretz was a powerful force who helped shape neoconservatism. In fact, neoconservatism was almost Podhoretz's personal ideology, one in which he promoted his own ideas for the future direction of America. However, in spite of being described as the conductor of the neocon orchestra, Podhoretz is often ignored by current assessments of the neocon movement. A fair examination of his work, as done in Struggling for Empire, will foster better understanding of the roots, concepts, and intellectual background of the movement. The book is also unique in that it is the first complete study to cover the years 1960 to the present of Commentary, puncturing, where necessary, some of the mythology that surrounds the flagship neocon magazine. Based on archival and unpublished materials, including Podhoretz's private papers, Struggling for Empire is the first detailed and critical study of neoconservatism to focus exclusively on Podhoretz and Commentary. A notable contribution to the study of conservatism in America, this timely book will appeal to anyone who seeks to understand better the movement that has shaped contemporary American politics.

..there is still more to say about Commentary magazine, one of the small-circulation journals with outsize influence that defined the post-World War II intellectual, political and artistic preoccupations, and about Norman Podhoretz, its larger-than-life former editor and a founder of neoconservatism. (The New York Times) While the neoconservative movement was correctly understood as being highly influential in the second Bush administration, it remains, according to Abrams, poorly understood, in part because of willful distortion and exaggeration both by the neoconservatives themselves as well as their many enemies and detractors. He aims to improve our understanding through a case study of the movement's foremost intellectual, Norman Podhoretz, and the magazine he edited for 35 years, Commentary. He focuses on how Commentary dealt with those issues that he argues caused Podhoretz and others to break with liberalism and become neoconservatives: Judaism and American policy towards Israel; US foreign policy and American anti-communism; and the civil rights movement and race relations, including Jewish-black relations and debates over affirmative action. He also addresses cultural issues such as homosexuality, religion and politics, feminism, and abortion, and considers the legacy of Podhoretz in terms of the moral and ethical responsibilities of the intellectual's vocation, especially when intellectuals get involved in politics. (Eithne O'Leyne, BOOK NEWS, Inc.)

Dr. Nathan Abrams is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Graduate Studies at the School of Creative Studies and Media, Bangor University, UK. He is the author of 3 books and many journal articles.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781441126580
ISBN 10	1441126589
Title	Norman Podhoretz and Commentary Magazine
Author	Nathan Abrams
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Continuum Publishing Corporation
Year published	2012-01-05
Number of pages	376
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.