Rating: 
Summary: Ideas Have Consequences
Review: "The Norman Podhoretz Reader" is a definitive collection of essays and book excerpts from the godfather of neo-conservatism. The selections stretch back to the 1950's when he was an eager young leftist, to the 1990's when he saw many of his second thoughts about the left vindicated by history. Almost half the material in the book is from the '90's so it hasn't appeared in previous book collections of his work.Podhoretz had his fling with antinomianism in the '50's and '60's--that is, an attitude of hostility to law. But because he was a devoted family man he was forced to reconsider the true effects of the "liberation" of those heady decades. He began so see: the bloody tyranny of utopian socialism; the monstrous arrogance of the post-war "new class" of liberal intellectuals and managers who thought they could repeal natural law and reshape human nature; the wisdom of religious thought; and the virtues of the United States as the worldwide guarantor of freedom and true liberalism. Some of my favorite pieces in this book are; "The Know-Nothing Bohemians" where Podhoretz debunks the Beats by examining the real-world consequences of their ideas about life (he may have been too hard on them as artists, but he had a point about them as people.) "An Open Letter to Milan Kundera", a brilliant consideration of that great novelist's work. "A Foul-Weather Friend to Norman Mailer", which examines his long, complex personal relationship with that eminence. "Was Bach Jewish?", a cheeky claim on that great composer for Podhoretz's own tradition. "If Orwell Were Alive Today", which convincingly demonstrates the conservative tendencies of the author of "Animal Farm" and "1984." Podhoretz's great gifts are his preternatural clarity of vision and hs forceful, elegant prose. Paul Johnson compares him to Orwell, and Jean-Francois Revel compares him to Emerson. Reading this book is like getting a second university liberal arts education, only this time from a professor who know what he's talking about.
Rating:
Summary: Ideas Have Consequences
Review: "The Norman Podhoretz Reader" is a definitive collection of essays and book excerpts from the godfather of neo-conservatism. The selections stretch back to the 1950's when he was an eager young leftist, to the 1990's when he saw many of his second thoughts about the left vindicated by history. Almost half the material in the book is from the '90's so it hasn't appeared in previous book collections of his work. Podhoretz had his fling with antinomianism in the '50's and '60's--that is, an attitude of hostility to law. But because he was a devoted family man he was forced to reconsider the true effects of the "liberation" of those heady decades. He began so see: the bloody tyranny of utopian socialism; the monstrous arrogance of the post-war "new class" of liberal intellectuals and managers who thought they could repeal natural law and reshape human nature; the wisdom of religious thought; and the virtues of the United States as the worldwide guarantor of freedom and true liberalism. Some of my favorite pieces in this book are; "The Know-Nothing Bohemians" where Podhoretz debunks the Beats by examining the real-world consequences of their ideas about life (he may have been too hard on them as artists, but he had a point about them as people.) "An Open Letter to Milan Kundera", a brilliant consideration of that great novelist's work. "A Foul-Weather Friend to Norman Mailer", which examines his long, complex personal relationship with that eminence. "Was Bach Jewish?", a cheeky claim on that great composer for Podhoretz's own tradition. "If Orwell Were Alive Today", which convincingly demonstrates the conservative tendencies of the author of "Animal Farm" and "1984." Podhoretz's great gifts are his preternatural clarity of vision and hs forceful, elegant prose. Paul Johnson compares him to Orwell, and Jean-Francois Revel compares him to Emerson. Reading this book is like getting a second university liberal arts education, only this time from a professor who know what he's talking about.
Rating: 
Summary: He Almost Made It
Review: As stated on the cover, this book Òoffers some of the best and most influential political essays written by anyone in our time.Ó The author addresses important issues and personages, and does so in an Òoffhand prose that moves easily between novelistic scene-setting and savvy exposition.Ó The book will surely find favor with thoughtful and literary readers. Although I concur with virtually all of Mr. PodhoretzÕ conclusions (as far as they go) I find Paul JohnsonÕs introduction praising him as Òa bit of a prophetÉa purveyor of harsh and often unwelcome truthÓ, extreme. My reading of Mr. Podhoretz is the very opposite. He consistently shrinks from ÒharshÓ and Òunwelcome truthÓ preferring to follow the formulaic rules of political advantage à criticizing adversaries and protecting allies à rather than developing ideas to their logical conclusions. Had he in fact dealt with ideas strictly on their merit, Mr. Podhoretz could have been the prophet that he is praised as being. I strongly recommend this book, but if one seeks positions beyond the confines of political correctness, he will not find them herein.
Rating:
Summary: He Almost Made It
Review: As stated on the cover, this book Òoffers some of the best and most influential political essays written by anyone in our time.Ó The author addresses important issues and personages, and does so in an Òoffhand prose that moves easily between novelistic scene-setting and savvy exposition.Ó The book will surely find favor with thoughtful and literary readers. Although I concur with virtually all of Mr. PodhoretzÕ conclusions (as far as they go) I find Paul JohnsonÕs introduction praising him as Òa bit of a prophetÉa purveyor of harsh and often unwelcome truthÓ, extreme. My reading of Mr. Podhoretz is the very opposite. He consistently shrinks from ÒharshÓ and Òunwelcome truthÓ preferring to follow the formulaic rules of political advantage Ð criticizing adversaries and protecting allies Ð rather than developing ideas to their logical conclusions. Had he in fact dealt with ideas strictly on their merit, Mr. Podhoretz could have been the prophet that he is praised as being. I strongly recommend this book, but if one seeks positions beyond the confines of political correctness, he will not find them herein.
Rating:
Summary: It's nice to see
Review: Judging from the comments of your first reviewer it's nice to see that the trendy left now openly professes it's antisemitism. Now if they could only be honest about the rest of their motivations... Buy the book if only to p**s off the pseudo-intellectual, self-congratulatory leftists, uhh national socialists, uhh progressives or whatever else they're calling themselves this decade.
Rating:
Summary: Help For Being Human
Review: Many Republicans seem to have forgotten that conservatism is more than a preoccupation with money and taxes. It was Marx, after all, who reduced man to an economic creature of such simple desires that they could be provided by government. The intellectual leaders of the conservative movement had broader interests. Russell Kirk admired Sir Walter Scott, Tolkien and Bradbury and wrote a book about T. S. Eliot, along with his own ghost stories and novels. William F. Buckley revered Evelyn Waugh, corresponded with Nabokov, who was a subscriber to National Review, and wrote spy novels.
Podhoretz has literary interests as well, having written about Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, George Orwell, Milan Kundera, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, and the Beat generation. Even when literary skills are not the subject they sometimes appear in the discussion, as when he praises Kissinger's literary skills while disagreeing with many of his opinions.
The sympathetic imagination Podhoretz exercises in the Kissinger essay seems to be of a piece with his having broken ranks with the Left, a move many of his ex-friends found intolerable. A man who breaks ranks for the truth, even at the cost of friendship, would naturally want to know to what degree ideas influence human behavior, or to put it another way, what to keep and what to leave behind. Contrary to his previous beliefs, he would conclude that governments and politicians can do very little to increase the happiness of human beings. Sounding like Samuel Johnson ("How small of all that human hearts endure,/That part which laws or kings can cause or cure"), he would agree with Bellow that the utopian theorizers he left behind "simply cannot understand how little help there is for being human."
Being brought to one's senses is another way of describing what Irving Kristol defined as a neoconservative: a liberal who has been mugged by reality. In only a matter of decades neoconservatism has been so absorbed into mainstream conservatism that Podhoretz eulogizes its existence as a separate movement. I see this as the natural evolution of conservatism, in which successful ideas rise to the top, as opposed to the conspiratorial view that neoconservatives have somehow "taken over" the government by force. After September 11, in particular, there is much less enthusiasm for the competing ideas of isolationism, a form of pacifism found on Left and Right; for atomistic individualism and a world without taxes or responsibility, which are the utopian dreams of libertarians; or for the anti-modern tendencies of paleoconservatives, which appear much less palatable when they are defended by Islamofascists. If neoconservatism is in ascent, it is because its ideas have been vindicated by events. This is what thoughtful conservatism has always advocated -- to adapt to the times while retaining what is enduring and fundamental -- and Podhoretz understood it earlier than most because the lesson came from his experience.
After five decades of commentary Podhoretz is still going strong. His recent essays on World War IV, not included here, received wide attention and praise. Where Paul Johnson sees the weeping prophet, I see also the sharp honesty, the elegant writing style, and the sense of the big picture, all of which may even provide a little help for being human.
Rating:
Summary: An Important Book
Review: Norman Podhoretz is one of the finest minds of our time. His writings on politics and literature display an unusual combination of intellectual depth and readability. A refreshing change from the current crop of political pundits who are more intested in demonizing their enemies than bringing insight to the issues confronting us.
Rating:
Summary: An Important Book
Review: Norman Podhoretz is one of the finest minds of our time. His writings on politics and literature display an unusual combination of intellectual depth and readability. A refreshing change from the current crop of political pundits who are more intested in demonizing their enemies than bringing insight to the issues confronting us.
Rating:
Summary: A good book
Review: Once again the big lie: if you don't like Israel, you are anti-Semitic. And left-wing to boot! Readers pro-and-con Israel should read this book; there is much more to it than just Podhoretz's curious Israel-philia. (And I, for one, still read Bellow!) In the same way that we ignore some of the excesses of Ezra Pound, we can take the best of Podhoretz and leave the rest with yesterday's issues of COMMENTARY.
Rating: 
Summary: Bagels and Cream Cheese
Review: The Podhoretz clan has come to be synonymous with gushing hyperbole -- what with Midge Decter's worshipful paean to Donald Rumsfeld and John Podhoretz's preposterous book on George II. This volume reminds us that father Norman was once a fairly serious thinker (too serious, one is tempted to add). Although Podhoretz always had a tendency to make himself out the one beleaguered boy on the burning deck, the fact remains that his anti-communism was both principled and necessary. His memoir of Norman Mailer still makes for amusing reading -- and he has some sharp observations on Saul Bellow. Still, the fact that these writers, all but unread now, seem to represent the highest literary standards for Podhoretz is rather sad. Podhoretz both overvalues Nabokov's "Lolita" and slams it for what he sees as immorality. He offers a corrective view of Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man." Unfortunately, he has bought into the Israel myth in a big way and seems to see the struggle to reclaim Palestine as one big Manichean struggle between the pure light of the Zionists and the dark fury of the Palestinians. Astonishingly, he upbraids Sir Isaiah Berlin for allowing his work to be printed in the New York Review of Books, where the Don might be published next to (gasp!) Noam Chomsky or (double gasp!) the late Edward Said, both of whom have been critical of Israel. All in all, Podhoretz comes off as a grumbler, and not a particularly well bred grumbler at that. But there are flashes of insight.
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