Norman Podhoretz and Commentary Magazine

"...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.)"