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Summary: Serious food for thought
Review: Radical Son does an excellent service in raising the very valid questions of "Why does leftist ideology tend to result in totalitarianism?", and "Why does the left refuse to acknowledge its repeated failures?". This is a very compelling story of one who dared raise those questions and has the courage to press for honest answers - answers which the left has yet to provide (and probably never will). I would highly recommend this book to any reader interested in a better understanding of the 'progressive cause' and the degree to which truth, honesty, and integrity are compromised in its name.
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Summary: Powerful, Wrenching Autobiography
Review: Thank God for David Horowitz, and that he has the bravery to write this book. It deals with the most wrenching, devastating personal issues, and yet Horowitz tells his story with considerable lyrical grace. He's been to hell and back, as they said of another famous "turncoat" leftist; but we can learn a great deal from his journey.
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Summary: Painful Journey
Review: Horowitz' book is often painful to read for its frank personal honesty about, not only, his change from left to right but his relations with his father who seems to have had an almost religious faith in the radical left. Its like reading someones diary or journal with all the uncomfortable feelings that come with seeing their innermost thoughts and pains. Its lack is the glossing over of Horowitz' own persecution during the 'red scares' of the 1950s because of his Jewishness. The one example of this at the hands of high school perpetrators is revealing but too quickly moved away from. As has become clear over the last decade, radical leftism is no more friendly to a Jew than radical rightism yet Horowitz fails to show the link between ignorant right wing racism and concealed left wing racism. Otherwise its a truly powerful story of one escaping a "faith" that regards its infidels as such aweful mortal enemies as any middle ages inquisition.
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Summary: Hmm
Review: In college I had an overtly romanticized view of sixties radicals and was very concerned with their defection to rightwing politics. Throughout college I found that many of the so-called progressive radicals were fascist jerks into power trips and pushing their view of what is right and wrong. Humor, discussion, allowing that others might know more -- these do not a college radical make. Nor a college republican. Nor a David Horowitz.Thank you David Horowitz for confirming my suspicions. One man who goes from commie extremist tendencies to talking to American backed death squads in Nicaragua is the same person. Why do most people talk psychology with Horowitz? Because his self-righteous idiocy is the same no matter what political stripe he wears. When he gets old and becomes something else (maybe he'll start getting into Israeli politics - either as a settler or a member of Hamas)...
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Summary: Finding the Light
Review: I was in no way involved with any radical movements. But I did find sympathy with the left during my youth. I saw the light as I grew older and that why I really loved the essence of this book. In a way it reminds me of my youthful thoughts and views and finally waking up to the fact that the ideas of the left are truly scary. I loved this book and love Horowitz for writing it.
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Summary: Fascinating
Review: I found Mr. Horowitz's book to be extremely fascinating. The 60's radicals were extremely interesting and I always wondered how they derived their ideology. Mr. Horowitz's personal experience with the movement helps give insight to the 1960's mindset. I am also certain the reviewers must have read a different book because their reviews do not reflect the message of Mr. Horowitz's book (perhaps their critique reflects not an opinion of the book, but their own opinion).
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Summary: Superb analysis of the leftist mind
Review: It ranks with Kuehnelt-Leddihn's _Leftism Revisited,_ Sowell's _Vision of the Annnointed_ and Hayek's _The Fatal Conceit_ in its analyisis of leftism and the leftist mind. It's obvious from this book that leftism is a form of psychotherapy: leftists are unhappy people who, unable to change themselves, attempt to change the world. ("Change the world and then I'll be happy.") They consider themselves intellectually and morally superior to the benighted masses, who are immersed in their "unthinking" tradition; they need a healthy dose of lefist destruction, and leftist "reason," to remake society into a Heaven on Earth. Horowitz makes the comment that every generation is barbarian and needs to be civilized. That's not quite true. The _leftists_ in every generation are the barbarians. They're the ones who need to be civilized. One only needs to look at what hydra-headed leftism (Communism, Socialism, Fascism and Nazism) have done in the last 100 years: up to 200 million dead. One of the more amusing defintions of insanity I've heard is "trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." Using that definition, leftists are insane.
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Summary: Like Vanilla Ice Cream...Easy to Eat, Yet Unmemorable
Review: The book is the "odyssey" of David Horowitz, from the far left revolutionary Marxist ilk to the far right 501(c)3 foundation reactionary. It details his life as a red diaper baby, through his days with Ramparts and the Panthers, to an abrupt U-turn to the reactionary right. The problem is the book never gives any clue to the evolution of thought, nor does David stop at the more pragmatic middle. It's as if he's just born to be an agitprop, and can't come to terms with any existence that doesn't include extremist theory. The two pivotal points appear to be the death of his good friend, at the alleged hands of the Panthers, and his wife throwing him out for infidelity. If it were my friend that was killed by revolutionary criminals, I'd be upset and disillusioned. But one still waits for Horowitz to explain his decision to arrive, where as the book only tells why he left. The turning point is merely an unexplained Zen moment, with his friend Peter Collier, while waiting to vote in the '84 election, decide to vote for Ronald Reagan. Since then, he's justified his extremist views by attacking everyone he ever knew, who once may have harbored Marxist thoughts. He dismisses their evolved thinking based on his perception of who they were 35 years ago. It's a sad tale of not the life Horowitz lived, but the hateful person he's become. George Will once said that conservatives define themselves as to what they are against. David has become against virtually everyone who isn't a far right reactionary. His life is dedicated to the smear of others. And yet, he never offers a compelling argument why. Radical Son is an easy read, like vanilla is a safe ice cream, it's OK, but very easy to pass up.
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Summary: A quest for truth, by fermed
Review: Without reading this book it will be difficult to appreciate or evaluate Horowitz's other works ("The Politics of Bad Faith" and "Hating Whitey") in which he describes the scams, prevarications, and dishonesty of the left. Like many others in history (Chambers, Koestler, and the millions of refugees from workers' paradises everywhere) Horowitz is an escapee from the tyranny of the left. He was raised a communist by his communist parents, and this books follows his painful ascent towards decency. It is the classic story of a conflict between ideology and personal probity, with the latter becoming in the end victorious. Those on the left cannot abide this kind of writing, for it leaves them naked and vulnerable; therefore they attack Mr. Horowitz's integrity, which happens to be one of his stronger suits. A wonderful book.
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Summary: The Radical Left Can't Handle the Truth
Review: Mr. Horowitz has given us a treatise exposing the Radical Left's formula for social revolution. A formula which does not, cannot, include objective thought, critical analysis, and constructive criticism. This formula embraces one, and only one, principle - Social Revolution. Any other time tested principles, such as truth, and justice are expendable tools in building their revolution. Mr. Horowitz takes us on a journey of his evolution and to the unequivocal conclusion that the radical movement cannot survive critical self-examination. The Radical Left must avoid the truth. Seeing the truth and taking it to its final foregone conclusion would destroy their dream, a flawed dream.
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