Irving Howe

Irving Howe
Howe during his year as writer in residence atUniversity of Michigan,1967-1968
Born	Irving Horenstein (1920-06-11)June 11, 1920 New York City, U.S.
Died	May 5, 1993(1993-05-05)(aged 72) New York City, U.S.
Occupation	Writer, public intellectual
Alma mater	City College of New York
Spouse	Alana Mack ​ (divorced)​ Thalia Phillies ​ (divorced)​ Ilana Weiner
Children	2, includingNicholas

Irving Howe(néHorenstein;/haʊ/;June 11, 1920 – May 5, 1993) was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of theDemocratic Socialists of America.

Early years

Howe was born asIrving HorensteininThe Bronx,New York.He was the son ofJewishimmigrants fromBessarabia,Nettie (née Goldman) and David Horenstein, who ran a small grocery store that went out of business during theGreat Depression.His father became a peddler and eventually a presser in a dress factory. His mother was an operator in the dress trade.

Howe attendedCity College of New Yorkand graduated in 1940,alongsideDaniel BellandIrving Kristol;by the summer of 1940, he had changed his name to Howe for political (as distinct from official) purposes.While at school, he was constantly debating socialism, Stalinism, fascism, and the meaning of Judaism. He served in the US Army duringWorld War II.Upon his return, he began writing literary and cultural criticism for the CIA-backedPartisan Reviewand became a frequent essayist forCommentary,politics,The Nation,The New Republic,andThe New York Review of Books.In 1954, Howe helped found the intellectual quarterlyDissent,which he edited until his death in 1993.In the 1950s Howe taught English andYiddishliterature atBrandeis UniversityinWaltham, Massachusetts.He used theHowe and Greenberg Treasury of Yiddish Storiesas the text for a course on the Yiddish story, when few were spreading knowledge or appreciation of the works in American colleges and universities.

Political career

Since his City College days, Howe was committed toleft-wing politics.He was a committed democratic socialist throughout his life. He was a member of theYoung People's Socialist League,joining it in the 1930s when it was under the influence of theTrotskyistSocialist Workers Party,remaining with YPSL when it became the youth organization ofMax Shachtman'sWorkers Partyin 1940, which he served in a leading capacity, for a time as the editor of its paper,Labor Action;he continued his activism with this political trend when it morphed into theIndependent Socialist League1949, but left this milieu later in the mid 1950s.

At the request of his friend,Michael Harrington,he helped cofound theDemocratic Socialist Organizing Committeein the early 1970s. DSOC merged into theDemocratic Socialists of Americain 1982, with Howe a vice-chair.

He was a vociferous opponent of both SoviettotalitarianismandMcCarthyism,called into questionstandard Marxist doctrine,and came into conflict with theNew Leftafter he criticized their unmitigated radicalism. Later in life, his politics gravitated toward more pragmaticdemocratic socialismandforeign policy,a position still represented inDissent.

He had a few famous run-ins with people. In the 1960s while atStanford University,he was verbally attacked by a young radical socialist, who claimed Howe was no longer committed to the revolution and that he had become status quo. Howe turned to the student and said, "You know what you're going to be? You're going to be a dentist."

Writer

Known forliterary criticismas well associalandpolitical activism,Howe wrote critical biographies onThomas Hardy,William Faulkner,andSherwood Anderson,a booklength examination of the relation of politics to fiction, and theoretical essays on Modernism, the nature of fiction, andsocial Darwinism.

He was also among the first to re-examine the work ofEdwin Arlington Robinsonand lead the way to establishing Robinson's reputation as one of the 20th century's great poets. His writing portrayed his dislike ofcapitalist America.

He wrote many influential books throughout his career, such asDecline of the New,World of our Fathers,Politics and the Noveland his autobiographyA Margin of Hope.He also wrote a biography ofLeon Trotsky,who was one of his childhood heroes.

Howe's exhaustive multidisciplinary history of Eastern European Jews in America,World of Our Fathers,is considered a classic ofsocial analysisand general scholarship. Howe explores the socialist Jewish New York from which he came. He examines the dynamic ofEastern European Jewsand the culture they created in America.World of our Fatherswon the 1977National Book Awardin Historyand theNational Jewish Book Awardin the History category.

He also edited and translated manyYiddishstories and commissioned the first English translation ofIsaac Bashevis Singerfor thePartisan Review.In that regard, he was critical ofPhilip Roth's early works,Goodbye ColumbusandPortnoy's Complaint,as philistine and vulgar caricatures of Jewish life that pandered to the worstanti-semitic stereotypes.

In 1987, Howe was a recipient of aMacArthur Fellowship.

Personal life and death

After marriages to Thalia Phillies and Alana Mack ended in divorce, Howe married Ilana Weiner. From his marriage to Phillies, a classicist, he had two children, Nina andNicholas(1953-2006).

Howe died fromcardiovascular diseaseatMount Sinai HospitalinManhattanon May 5, 1993, at the age of 72.

Legacy

He had strong political views that he would ferociously defend.Morris Dickstein,a professor at Queens College referred to Howe as a "counterpuncher who tended to dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy of the moment, whether left or right, though he himself was certainly a man of the left."

Leon Wieseltier,who was the literary editor ofThe New Republic,said of Howe: "He lived in three worlds, literary, political and Jewish, and he watched all of them change almost beyond recognition."

AndRichard Rorty,American philosopher of note, dedicated his well-known work,Achieving Our Country(1999), to Howe's memory.

He appeared as himself inWoody Allen'smockumentaryZelig.

Works

Books

Authored

• Smash the Profiteers: Vote for Security and a Living Wage.New York: Workers Party Campaign Committee, 1946.
• Don't Pay More Rent!Long Island City, NY: Workers Party Publications, 1947. Printed for theWorkers Party of the United States.
• The UAW and Walter Reuther.Co-authored withB. J. Widick.New York:Random House,1949.
• Sherwood Anderson.New York:Sloane,1951.
• William Faulkner: A Critical Study.New York:Random House,1952.
• The American Communist Party: A Critical History, 1919-1957.Co-authored withLewis Coser,with the assistance ofJulius Jacobson.Boston:Beacon Press,1957.
• Politics and the Novel.New York: Horizon Press, 1957.
• The Jewish Labor Movement in America: Two Views.Co-authored with Israel Knox. New York:Jewish Labor Committee,1957.
• Edith Wharton: A Collection of Critical Essays.Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hall,1962.
• T.E. Lawrence: The Problem of Heroism.The Hudson Review,Vol. 15, No. 3, 1962.
• A World More Attractive: A View of Modern Literature and Politics.New York: Horizon Press, 1963.
• Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio.Washington, D.C.:Voice of America,1964. American Novel Series #14
• New Styles in "Leftism."New York:League for Industrial Democracy,1965.
• On the Nature of Communism and Relations with Communists.New York:League for Industrial Democracy,1966.
• Steady Work: Essays in the Politics of Democratic Radicalism, 1953-1966.New York:Harcourt, Brace & World,1966.
• Thomas Hardy.New York:Macmillan,1967.
• The Idea of the Modern in Literature and the Arts.New York: Horizon Press, 1967.
• Literary Modernism.Greenwich, CT:Fawcett Publications,1967.
• Student Activism.Indianapolis:Bobbs-Merrill,1967.
• Decline of the New.New York:Harcourt, Brace & World,1970.
• The Literature of America.Co-authored withMark Schorer& Larzer Ziff. New York:McGraw-Hill,1971.ISBN9780070305717
• The Critical Point: On Literature and Culture.New York: Horizon Press, 1973.
• World of our Fathers: The Journey of the East European Jews to America and the Life They Found and Made.New York:Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,1976.
• New Perspectives: The Diaspora and Israel.Co-authored with Matityahu Peled. New York:Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,1976
• Trotsky.London:Fontana Modern Masters,1978.
• Leon Trotsky.New York:Viking Press,1978
• Celebrations and Attacks: Thirty Years of Literary and Cultural Commentary.New York: Horizon Press, 1979.ISBN0818011769
• The Threat of Conservatism.Co-authored withGus Tyler&Peter Steinfels.New York: Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas, 1980.
• The Making of a Critic,Bennington, VT:Bennington College,1982.Ben Belittlectureship series, #5.
• A Margin of Hope: An Intellectual Autobiography.Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,1982.ISBN0151571384
• Socialism and America.San Diego:Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,1985.ISBN0151835756
• The American Newness: Culture and Politics in the Age of Emerson.Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press,1986.ISBN0674026403
• American Jews and Liberalism.Co-authored withMichael Walzer,Leonard Fein&Mitchell Cohen.New York: Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas, 1986.
• The Return of Terrorism.Bronx, NY:Lehman Collegeof theCity University of New York,1989.Herbert H. Lehmanmemorial lecture,Lehman Collegepublications, #22.
• Selected Writings, 1950-1990San Diego:Harcourt Brace,1990.
• A Critic's Notebook.Edited and introduced byNicholas Howe.New York:Harcourt Brace,1994.
• The End of Jewish Secularism.New York:Hunter Collegeof theCity University of New York,1995. Occasional papers in Jewish history and thought, #1.

Edited

• Gissing, George.New Grub Street.Boston:Houghton Mifflin,1962.
• Poverty: Views from the Left.Edited withJeremy Larner.New York: Apollo, 1962.
• The Basic Writings of Trotsky.New York:Random House,1963.
• The Radical Papers.New York:Doubleday,1966.
• Shoptalk: An Instructor's Manual for Classics of Modern Fiction: Eight Short Novels.New York:Harcourt, Brace & World,1968.
• Beyond the New Left.New York:McCall Publishing Co.,1970.ISBN0841500215
• The New Conservatives: A Critique From the Left.Edited withLewis A. Coser.New York:Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co.,1974.ISBN0812904184
• Yiddish Stories: Old and New.Edited with Eliezer Greenberg. New York:Avon Books,1977.ISBN978-0380008872
• The Best of Sholem Aleichem.Edited withRuth R. Wisse.Washington:New Republic Books,1979.ISBN0915220482
• How We Lived: A Documentary History of Immigrant Jews in America, 1880-1930.Edited withKenneth Libo.New York: R. Marek, 1979.
• The Portable Kipling.New York:Viking Press,1982.
• Beyond the Welfare State.New York:Schocken Books,1982.
• Short Shorts: An Anthology of the Shortest Stories.Edited with Ilana Wiener Howe. Boston, MA: D.R. Godine, 1982.
• 1984 Revisited: Totalitarianism in Our Century.New York:Harper & Row,1983.ISBN0060151587

Contributed

• “Introduction.”New Grub Street,byGeorge Gissing.Boston:Houghton Mifflin,1962.
• ”Notes on the Welfare State.”Poverty: Views from the Left,edited withJeremy Larner.New York: Apollo, 1962, pp. 293–314.
• ”Introduction.”The Basic Writings of Trotsky,edited by Irving Howe. New York:Random House,1963.
• ”Afterword.”An American Tragedy,byTheodore Dreiser.New York:Signet Classic,1964.
• ”Are American Jews Turning to the Right?”The New Conservatives: A Critique From the Left,edited by Daniel Bell &Lewis A. Coser.New York:Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co.,1974.ISBN0812904184
• ”Introduction.”Short Shorts: An Anthology of the Shortest Stories.Edited with Ilana Wiener Howe. Boston, MA: D.R. Godine, 1982.

Translated

• Baeck, Leo.The Essence of Judaism,translated by Irving Howe and Victor Grubwieser. New York:Schocken Books,1948.

Articles and introductions

• A treasury of Yiddish stories,editor withEliezer GreenbergNew York,Viking Press,1954.
• Modern literary criticism: an anthology,editor, Boston, Beacon Press, 1958.
• "New York in the Thirties: Some Fragments of Memory,"Dissent,vol.8, no.3 (Summer 1961), pp. 241–250.
• The Historical NovelbyGeorg Lukacs;preface by Irving Howe, Boston:Beacon Press,1963
• Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: Text, Sources, Criticismeditor, New York:Harcourt, Brace and World,1963. (Second edition 1982)
• The Merry-Go-Round of Love and selected storiesby Luigi Pirandello, trans. Frances Keene and Lily Duplaix, with a foreword by Irving Howe, New York, The New American Library of World Literature, 1964.
• Jude the obscurebyThomas Hardy;edited with an introduction by Irving Howe, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965.
• Selected writings: stories, poems and essays.by Thomas Hardy; edited with an introduction by Irving Howe, Greenwich, Conn.,Fawcett Publications,1966.
• Selected short stories of Isaac Bashevis Singeredited with an introduction by Irving Howe, New York,Modern Library,1966.
• The radical imagination; an anthology from Dissent Magazineeditor, New York:New American Library,1967.
• A Dissenter's guide to foreign policyeditor, New York:Praeger,1968.
• Classics of modern fiction; eight short novelseditor, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968.
• A treasury of Yiddish poetry,editor with Eliezer Greenberg New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969.
• Essential works of socialismeditor, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970.
• The literature of America; nineteenth centuryeditor, New York,McGraw-Hill,1970.
• Israel, the Arabs, and the Middle Easteditor withCarl Gershman,New York,Quadrangle Books,1970.
• Voices from the Yiddish: essays, memoirs, diaries,editor with Eliezer Greenberg Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1972.
• The seventies: problems and proposals,editor withMichael HarringtonNew York, Harper & Row, 1972.
• The world of the blue-collar workereditor, New York, Quadrangle Books, 1972.
• Yiddish stories, old and new,editor with Eliezer Greenberg New York,Holiday House1974
• HerzogbySaul Bellowtext and criticism edited by Irving Howe, New York, Viking Press, 1976.
• Jewish-American stories,editor, New York: New American Library, 1977.
• Ashes out of hope: fiction by Soviet-Yiddish writers,editor with Eliezer Greenberg New York: Schocken Books, 1977.
• Literature as experience: an anthologyeditor withJohn HollanderandDavid Bromwich,New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979.
• Twenty-five years of Dissent: an American traditioncompiled and with an introd. by Irving Howe, New York:Methuen,1979.
• 1984 revisited: totalitarianism in our centuryeditor, New York: Harper & Row, 1983.
• Alternatives, proposals for America from the democratic lefteditor, New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.
• We lived there, too: in their own words and pictures—pioneer Jews and the westward movement of America, 1630-1930editor withKenneth Libo,New York: St. Martin's/Marek, 1984.
• The Penguin book of modern Yiddish verseedited by Irving Howe,Ruth WisseandChone ShmerukNew York, Viking Press, 1987
• Oliver TwistbyCharles Dickens,introduction New York: Bantam, 1990.
• The castlebyFranz Kafka,introduction London:David Campbell Publishers,1992.
• Little DorritbyCharles Dickens,introduction London: David Campbell Publishers, 1992.

Further reading

Articles

• Rodden, John. “Remembering Irving Howe.”Salmagundi,No. 148/149, Fall 2005, pp. 243–257.

Books

• Alexander, Edward.Irving Howe: Socialist, Critic, Jew.Bloomington, IN:Indiana University Press,1998.
• Rodden, John, (ed.)Irving Howe and the Critics: Celebrations and Attacks.Lincoln, NE:University of Nebraska Press,2005.
• Sorin, Gerald.Irving Howe: A Life of Passionate Dissent.New York:New York University Press,2002.

Primary sources

• Cain, William."An Interview with Irving Howe."American Literary History,Vol.1, No.3 (Autumn 1989): 554-564.
• Howe, Irving.Politics and the Intellectual: Conversations with Irving Howe.Purdue University Press,2010.

Interviews during the previous fifteen years.

• Libo, Kenneth. "My Work on World of Our Fathers."American Jewish History,Vol.88, No.4 (2000): 439-448.Online.

Memoir by his research assistant.

• Rodden, John (ed.)Irving Howe and the Critics: Celebrations and Attacks.University of Nebraska Press,2005.

Essays and reviews written by his critics.

External links

• Irving Howe Archiveatmarxists.org
• Dissent,the quarterly Howe founded and edited
• fromThe New York IntellectualsbyAlan M. Wald
• Arguing the World,1998PBSdocumentary film featuringNathan Glazer,Irving Kristol,Daniel Bell,and Howe
• Irving HoweatLibrary of CongressAuthorities — with 108 catalog records