The four contributed countless essays to magazines such as the Greenwich Village-based Partisan Review, and they were early champions of modernism, introducing modern literature and culture to a broader audience through their writings and classes. They also wrote highly influential books. Nonetheless, their responses to the McCarthy hearings suggest a certain ineffectual passivity. Dorman's subjects grew increasingly conservative over the years, although Howe, who died in '93, didn't move as far to the right as the others. Conversely, Kristol's influence peaked late in his career when Ronald Reagan and his advisers embraced his neoconservative tenets and ideology.
People realize that it's missing from the culture, and they're attracted to it.
And although the United States isn't an intellectual country, people respond to these brilliant, engaging and funny men whose story mirrors an interesting political trajectory this century. Dorman, whose next project is about Sholem Aleichem and the American immigrant Jewish community around the turn of the century, came from a slightly different background than that of his subjects. I first understood the world in Freudian terms. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.