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| A Better World: Stalinism and the American Intellectuals
ISBN: 9781003073192
Platform/Publisher: Taylor & Francis / Routledge
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited
Subjects: Politics & International Relations; Introductory Politics;
This book chronicles the struggle among non-Communist leftists and liberals over American relations with the Soviet Union from 1939 through the 1950s. Few now care as passionately and as violently as people did then about Soviet-American relations. It was a time when friends became enemies, and others forged strange alliances, all in the name of commitments that today seem remote. A Better World evokes those times and their choices, and explains why these long-ago battles still arouse such deep feelings today - and should.Americans who were pro-Soviet without being members of the Communist party - 'progressives' as they called themselves - had a large emotional investment in the Soviet Union. From 1935 to 1939 literally millions joined the 'Popular Front' of pro-Soviet organizations. O'Neill takes us through the shock of the Stalin-Hitler pact of 1939, through the revival of the Popular Front spurred by government and business support after Russia entered the war against Hitler. He traces the isolation of the anti-Stalinists, the rise and fall of Henry Wallace, and the eclipse of progressivism. And he explores the shifting allegiances of intellectuals as they struggled, often with each other, to influence the course of public debate, with long-lasting consequences for American intellect, culture, and morals.As O'Neill observes in his introduction, 'More than any of my other books A Better World inspired correspondents to send me probing or reflective letters.' It was this response, along with the extraordinary critical debate spurred by initial publication of this volume, that makes the book's continuing importance clear. The dream of achieving a better world through radical violence never dies, and the willingness of apologists to cling to utopian visions persists. As long as it does, the lessons of this book need to be available to us.
William Lawrence O'Neill was born in Big Rapids, Michigan on April 18, 1935. After graduating from the University of Michigan, he received a doctorate in history at the University of California, Berkeley. He taught at the universities of Pittsburgh, Colorado, and Wisconsin. He taught at Rutgers University from 1971 until his retirement in 2006. He was a historian who examined America's political radicals and its not always wise behavior in war. He wrote several books including The Last Romantic: A Life of Max Eastman, Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960's, A Better World: The Great Schism: Stalinism and the American Intellectuals, American High: The Years of Confidence 1945-1960, and A Democracy at War: America's Fight at Home and Abroad in World War II. He died from septic shock and pneumonia on March 29, 2016 at the age of 80. (Bowker Author Biography) |
