Irving Howe

Irving Howe (né Horenstein; /haʊ/; June 11, 1920 –

May 5, 1993) was an American literary and social Irving Howe
critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic
Socialists of America.

Early years
Howe was born as Irving Horenstein in The Bronx,
New York. He was the son of Jewish immigrants from
Bessarabia, Nettie (née Goldman) and David
Horenstein, who ran a small grocery store that went
out of business during the Great Depression.[1] His
father became a peddler and eventually a presser in a
dress factory. His mother was an operator in the dress Howe during his year as writer in residence at
trade.[2] University of Michigan, 1967-1968
Born Irving Horenstein
Howe attended City College of New York and June 11, 1920
graduated in 1940,[2] alongside Daniel Bell and Irving New York City, U.S.
Kristol; by the summer of 1940, he had changed his Died
May 5, 1993 (aged 72)
name to Howe for political (as distinct from official)
New York City, U.S.
purposes.[3] While at school, he was constantly
Occupation Writer, public intellectual
debating socialism, Stalinism, fascism, and the
meaning of Judaism. He served in the US Army during Alma mater City College of New York

World War II. Upon his return, he began writing Spouse Alana Mack ​(divorced)​
literary and cultural criticism for the CIA-backed Thalia Phillies ​(divorced)​
Partisan Review and became a frequent essayist for Ilana Weiner
Commentary, politics, The Nation, The New Republic, Children
2, including Nicholas
and The New York Review of Books. In 1954, Howe
helped found the intellectual quarterly Dissent, which
he edited until his death in 1993.[2] In the 1950s Howe taught English and Yiddish literature at Brandeis
University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He used the Howe and Greenberg Treasury of Yiddish Stories as
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 to left-wing politics. He was a committed democratic
socialist throughout his life. He was a member of the Young People's Socialist League, joining it in the
1930s when it was under the influence of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, remaining with YPSL
when it became the youth organization of Max Shachtman's Workers Party in 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 the Independent Socialist League 1949, but left this milieu later in
the mid 1950s.

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

He was a vociferous opponent of both Soviet totalitarianism and McCarthyism, called into question
standard Marxist doctrine, and came into conflict with the New Left after he criticized their unmitigated
radicalism. Later in life, his politics gravitated toward more pragmatic democratic socialism and foreign
policy, a position still represented in Dissent.

He had a few famous run-ins with people. In the 1960s while at Stanford 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."[2]

Writer
Known for literary criticism as well as social and political activism, Howe wrote critical biographies on
Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, and Sherwood Anderson, a booklength examination of the relation of
politics to fiction, and theoretical essays on Modernism, the nature of fiction, and social Darwinism.

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

He wrote many influential books throughout his career, such as Decline of the New, World of our Fathers,
Politics and the Novel and his autobiography A Margin of Hope. He also wrote a biography of Leon
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 of social analysis and general scholarship. Howe explores the socialist Jewish New
York from which he came. He examines the dynamic of Eastern European Jews and the culture they
created in America. World of our Fathers won the 1977 National Book Award in History[4] and the
National Jewish Book Award in the History category.[5]

He also edited and translated many Yiddish stories and commissioned the first English translation of Isaac
Bashevis Singer for the Partisan Review.[2] In that regard, he was critical of Philip Roth's early works,
Goodbye Columbus and Portnoy's Complaint, as philistine and vulgar caricatures of Jewish life that
pandered to the worst anti-semitic stereotypes.
In 1987, Howe was a recipient of a MacArthur 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 and Nicholas (1953-2006).[6][7][8]

Howe died from cardiovascular disease at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan on May 5, 1993, at the age
of 72.[2]

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."[2]

Leon Wieseltier, who was the literary editor of The New Republic, said of Howe: "He lived in three
worlds, literary, political and Jewish, and he watched all of them change almost beyond recognition."[2]

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

He appeared as himself in Woody Allen's mockumentary Zelig.

Works

Books
Authored

Smash the Profiteers: Vote for Security and a Living Wage (https://archive.org/details/Smas
hTheProfiteers). New York: Workers Party Campaign Committee, 1946.
Don't Pay More Rent! (https://archive.org/details/DontPayMoreRent) Long Island City, NY:
Workers Party Publications, 1947. Printed for the Workers Party of the United States.
The UAW and Walter Reuther (https://archive.org/details/uawwalterreuther00howe). Co-
authored with B. J. Widick. New York: Random House, 1949.
Sherwood Anderson (https://archive.org/details/sherwoodanderson00howe). New York:
Sloane, 1951.
William Faulkner: A Critical Study (https://archive.org/details/williamfaulknerc0000howe).
New York: Random House, 1952.
The American Communist Party: A Critical History, 1919-1957 (https://archive.org/details/cp
usahowecoser). Co-authored with Lewis Coser, with the assistance of Julius Jacobson.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1957.
Politics and the Novel (https://archive.org/details/politicsnovel00howe/). 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 (https://archive.org/details/edithwhartoncoll00
howe). 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 (https://archive.org/downlo
ad/worldmoreattract00howe/worldmoreattract00howe.pdf). 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 (https://archive.or
g/details/steadyworkessays00howe). New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966.
Thomas Hardy (https://archive.org/details/thomashardy00howe). 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 (https://archive.org/details/declineofnew0000howe_r3o6). New York:
Harcourt, Brace & World, 1970.
The Literature of America (https://archive.org/details/literatureofamer00how_sb8). Co-
authored with Mark Schorer & Larzer Ziff. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971.
ISBN 9780070305717
The Critical Point: On Literature and Culture (https://archive.org/details/criticalpointonl00how
e). 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 (https://archive.org/details/worldofourfather00irvi). New York: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, 1976.
New Perspectives: The Diaspora and Israel. Co-authored with Matityahu Peled. New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976
Trotsky (https://archive.org/details/leontrotsky00howe). London: Fontana Modern Masters,
1978.
Leon Trotsky (https://archive.org/details/leontrotsky00howe). New York: Viking Press, 1978
Celebrations and Attacks: Thirty Years of Literary and Cultural Commentary (https://archive.
org/details/celebrationsatta00howe). New York: Horizon Press, 1979. ISBN 0818011769
The Threat of Conservatism. Co-authored with Gus 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 Belitt lectureship
series, #5.
A Margin of Hope: An Intellectual Autobiography (https://archive.org/details/marginofhopeint
00howe). Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982. ISBN 0151571384
Socialism and America (https://archive.org/details/socialismamerica00howerich). San Diego:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985. ISBN 0151835756
The American Newness: Culture and Politics in the Age of Emerson (https://archive.org/deta
ils/americannewnessc00howe). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986.
ISBN 0674026403
American Jews and Liberalism. Co-authored with Michael Walzer, Leonard Fein & Mitchell
Cohen. New York: Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas, 1986.
 The Return of Terrorism. Bronx, NY: Lehman College of the City University of New York,
1989. Herbert H. Lehman memorial lecture, Lehman College publications, #22.
Selected Writings, 1950-1990 San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1990.
A Critic's Notebook (https://archive.org/details/criticsnotebook00howe). Edited and
introduced by Nicholas Howe. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994.
The End of Jewish Secularism. New York: Hunter College of the City 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 (https://archive.org/details/povertyviewsfrom0000larn). Edited
with Jeremy Larner. New York: Apollo, 1962.
The Basic Writings of Trotsky (https://archive.org/details/basicwritings0000trot/). 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 (https://archive.org/details/beyondnewleft0000howe_u0x1). New York:
McCall Publishing Co., 1970. ISBN 0841500215
The New Conservatives: A Critique From the Left (https://archive.org/details/newconservativ
es00lewi). Edited with Lewis A. Coser. New York: Quadrangle/The New York Times Book
Co., 1974. ISBN 0812904184
Yiddish Stories: Old and New (https://archive.org/details/yiddishstoriesol0000howe). Edited
with Eliezer Greenberg. New York: Avon Books, 1977. ISBN 978-0380008872
The Best of Sholem Aleichem (https://archive.org/details/bestofsholemalei00shol). Edited
with Ruth R. Wisse. Washington: New Republic Books, 1979. ISBN 0915220482
How We Lived: A Documentary History of Immigrant Jews in America, 1880-1930 (https://ar
chive.org/details/howweliveddocume00howe). Edited with Kenneth Libo. New York: R.
Marek, 1979.
The Portable Kipling (https://archive.org/details/portablekipling00kipl_0). New York: Viking
Press, 1982.
Beyond the Welfare State (https://archive.org/details/beyondwelfaresta00howe). New York:
Schocken Books, 1982.
Short Shorts: An Anthology of the Shortest Stories (https://archive.org/details/shortshort00irv
i). Edited with Ilana Wiener Howe. Boston, MA: D.R. Godine, 1982.
1984 Revisited: Totalitarianism in Our Century (https://archive.org/details/1984revisitedtot00
howe/). New York: Harper & Row, 1983. ISBN 0060151587
Contributed

“Introduction.” New Grub Street, by George Gissing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962.
”Notes on the Welfare State.” (https://archive.org/download/notesonthewelfarestatebyirvingh
owe/Notes%20on%20the%20Welfare%20State%2C%20by%20Irving%20Howe.pdf)
Poverty: Views from the Left (https://archive.org/details/povertyviewsfrom0000larn), edited
with Jeremy Larner. New York: Apollo, 1962, pp. 293–314.
”Introduction.” The Basic Writings of Trotsky (https://archive.org/details/basicwritings0000tro
t/), edited by Irving Howe. New York: Random House, 1963.
”Afterword.” (https://archive.org/download/afterword.anamericantragedybytheodoredreiser/A
fterword.%20An%20American%20Tragedy%2C%20by%20Theodore%20Dreiser.pdf) An
American Tragedy (https://archive.org/details/americantragedy00theo/), by Theodore
Dreiser. New York: Signet Classic, 1964.
 ”Are American Jews Turning to the Right?” (https://archive.org/download/areamericanjewstu
rningtowardtherightbybernardrosenbergirvinghowe/Are%20American%20Jews%20Turnin
g%20Toward%20the%20Right%3F%2C%20by%20Bernard%20Rosenberg%20%26%20Irvi
ng%20Howe.pdf) The New Conservatives: A Critique From the Left (https://archive.org/detai
ls/newconservatives00lewi), edited by Daniel Bell & Lewis A. Coser. New York:
Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co., 1974. ISBN 0812904184
”Introduction.” Short Shorts: An Anthology of the Shortest Stories (https://archive.org/details/
shortshort00irvi). 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 with Eliezer Greenberg New 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 Novel by Georg Lukacs; preface by Irving Howe, Boston: Beacon Press, 1963
Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: Text, Sources, Criticism (https://archive.org/details/orwells19
84) editor, New York : Harcourt, Brace and World, 1963. (Second edition 1982)
The Merry-Go-Round of Love and selected stories by 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 obscure by Thomas 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 Singer edited with an introduction by Irving Howe,
New York, Modern Library, 1966.
The radical imagination; an anthology from Dissent Magazine editor, New York : New
American Library, 1967.
A Dissenter's guide to foreign policy editor, New York : Praeger, 1968.
Classics of modern fiction; eight short novels editor, 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 socialism editor, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970.
The literature of America; nineteenth century editor, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1970.
Israel, the Arabs, and the Middle East editor with Carl 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 with Michael Harrington New York, Harper &
Row, 1972.
The world of the blue-collar worker editor, New York, Quadrangle Books, 1972.
Yiddish stories, old and new, editor with Eliezer Greenberg New York, Holiday House 1974
 Herzog by Saul Bellow text 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 anthology editor with John Hollander and David Bromwich,
New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979.
Twenty-five years of Dissent: an American tradition compiled and with an introd. by Irving
Howe, New York : Methuen, 1979.
1984 revisited: totalitarianism in our century editor, New York : Harper & Row, 1983.
Alternatives, proposals for America from the democratic left editor, New York : Pantheon
Books, 1984.
We lived there, too: in their own words and pictures—pioneer Jews and the westward
movement of America, 1630-1930 editor with Kenneth Libo, New York : St. Martin's/Marek,
1984.
The Penguin book of modern Yiddish verse edited by Irving Howe, Ruth Wisse and Chone
Shmeruk New York, Viking Press, 1987
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, introduction New York: Bantam, 1990.
The castle by Franz Kafka, introduction London : David Campbell Publishers, 1992.
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens, introduction London : David Campbell Publishers, 1992.

References
1. Rodden, John and Goffman, Ethan (2010). "Chronology". Politics and the Intellectual:
Conversations With Irving Howe (https://books.google.com/books?id=DCwaO17isQMC&dq
=Irving+Howe+Horenstein&pg=PR15). West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.
ISBN 9781557535511. Pg. xv.
2. Bernstein, Richard (May 6, 1993). "Irving Howe, 72, Critic, Editor and Socialist, Dies" (http
s://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/06/obituaries/irving-howe-72-critic-editor-and-socialist-dies.ht
ml?pagewanted=all&src=pm). Page D22. The New York Times. Retrieved January 27,
2012.
3. Edward Alexander, Irving Howe - Socialist, Critic, Jew (Indiana University Press, 1998;
ISBN 0253113210), p. 10.
4. "National Book Awards – 1977" (https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-
awards-1977). National Book Foundation. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
5. "Past Winners" (https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/awards/national-jewish-book-awards/pas
t-winners?category=30765). Jewish Book Council. Retrieved July 1, 2022.
6. "In Memoriam: Nicholas Howe" (https://web.archive.org/web/20111111075415/http://www.u
niversityofcalifornia.edu/senate/inmemoriam/nicholashowe.htm). University of California.
2006. Archived from the original (http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/inmemoriam/ni
cholashowe.htm) on November 11, 2011. Retrieved January 12, 2013.
7. Wisse, Ruth R. (March 27, 2019). "Contention; or, My Disputes with Irving Howe, Yiddish
Academia, and Holocaust Memorials" (https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/israel-zioni
sm/2019/03/contention-or-my-disputes-with-irving-howe-yiddish-academia-and-holocaust-m
emorials/). Mosaic. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
8. Rosenheim, Andrew (May 6, 1993). "Obituary: Irving Howe" (https://www.independent.co.uk/
news/people/obituary-irving-howe-2321405.html). The Independent. Retrieved August 20,
2024.
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. (https://archive.org/details/irvingho
welifeof00sori) New York: New York University Press, 2002.

Primary sources
Cain, William. "An Interview with Irving Howe." (https://archive.org/download/cainwilliamandi
rvinghowe.aninterviewwithirvinghowe.americanliteraryhistoryvol.1n/Cain%2C%20William%2
C%20and%20Irving%20Howe.%20%22An%20Interview%20with%20Irving%20Howe.%2
2%20American%20Literary%20History%2C%20Vol.%201%2C%20No.%203%20%28Autum
n%201989%29%20554-564%20JSTOR%20489718.pdf) 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 (http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_jewish_history/v088/88.4lib
o.html).

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 Archive (https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/howe/index.htm) at
marxists.org
Dissent (http://www.dissentmagazine.org), the quarterly Howe founded and edited
from The New York Intellectuals (http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/wald-on-howe.h
tml) by Alan M. Wald
Arguing the World (https://www.pbs.org/arguing/), 1998 PBS documentary film featuring
Nathan Glazer, Irving Kristol, Daniel Bell, and Howe
 Irving Howe (http://lccn.loc.gov/n78096893) at Library of Congress Authorities — with 108
catalog records

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