Irving Kristol: Neoconservatism – The Autobiography of an Idea

Selected Essays 1949-1995

The Free Press, 1995     Amazon.com

From Front and Back Flaps:

Neoconservatism is the movement that has provided the intellectual foundation for the resurgence of American conservatism in our time. And if neoconservatism can be said to have a father or an architect, that person is Irving Kristol.

Kristol was un unlikely candidate for the mantle of conservative leader. Schooled in radical socialism as a student at City College in the 1930s, Irving Kristol was soon disillusioned with the Left and thereafter rose swiftly to become an intellectual bulwark of the anticommuist movement. But he was much more than just an ideological foe of the Soviet Union. As an active editor and publisher, as well as a prolific writer in his own right, Kristol was instrumental in moving a generation of intellectuals to the conservative cause, and through them countless others.

Neoconservatism is the most comprehensive selection of Kristol’s influential writings on politics and economics, as well as the best of his now-famous essays on society, religion, culture, literature, education, and – above all – the ‘values’ issues that have come to define the neoconservative critique of contemporary life.

In the post-Cold War era, Kristol remains one of America’s most prescient and important social critics. No narrow political partisan, Kristol champions pragmatic solutions to social problems while never straying from a deep grounding in ethics and religion. Whether addressing academic topics, crafting political strategy, or expounding on economics in the pages of The Wall Street Journal, Kristol writes with forceful clarity and ease; those who bemoan the disappearance of America’s “public intellectuals” need look no further than this vital collection.

These essays provide an unparalleled insight into the 50-year development of Kristol’s social and political ideas, from an uneasy socialism tempered with religious orthodoxy, to a vigilant optimism about the future of the American experiment. Those already familiar with Kristol’s work will especially enjoy the new autobiographical essay that introduces this volume; it is sprinkled with personal recollections about such luminaries as Lionel Trilling, Leo Strauss, Saul Bellow, Sidney Hook, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and historian Gertrude Himmelfarb (who is also Mrs. Kristol). Those relatively new to Kristol’s writings will be treated to some of the most lucid, insightful, entertaining, and intellectually challenging essays of our time.

Back Cover:

Praise for Irving Kristol

“Irving Kristol has been a friend for many years. He also happens to be one of America’s most impressive – and most important – social critics and intellectuals. To the unconvinced, I would simply say: read this superb collection. It will provide you with all the evidence you need.”  William J. Bennett, author of The Book of Virtues

“The Neoconservative episode was a brief and shining moment in American history, and here is its primary narrative. It is also a record of the questions by which Irving provoked us to think in a new way; and he changes ur forever. His luminous autobiographical chapter alone is worth the price of the book.”  Michael Novak, 1994 Templeton Laureate; George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion and Public Policy, American Enterprise Institute

“Irving Kristol is a world-class intellect – one of the seminal thinkers of our time – and he is also a thoroughly admirable human being. Both these characteristics come through in this book, making it a pleasure for the mind and soul.”  Dick Cheney, former U.S. Defense Secretary

“Irving Kristol, the distinguished author and official godfather of the Neoconservative movement, has worked tirelessly for nearly half a century to promote conservative principles and to adapt them to our time. Now, in Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea, he has brought his most influential articles together into a single volume. These essays reveal the evolution of his thinking, and the penetrating intelligence, wisdom, and courage of the writer himself. In a time when the word “intellectual” has been cheapened by misuse, Irving Kristol is the genuine article.”  William E. Simon, former U.S. Treasury Secretary; President, John M. Olin Foundation

Irving Kristol, Wikipedia

JOB’s Comment:

The leading first-generation neocon, and perhaps the most reasonable. The truths of the neoconservative analysis of contemporary culture are clearly on display here, especially in the sections ‘Race, Sex, and Family’ and ‘From Adversary Culture to Counterculture’. But the other sections too, on ‘On Capitalism and the Democratic Idea’, ‘The Conservative Prospect’, ‘On Jews’, and ‘Some Backward Glances’, contain essays that are still worth reading. I have suggested critics of neoconservatism should not play down or deny its truths. This collection of Kristol’s essays is a good place to start for those who wish to study its more serious thinking. The truths of neoconservatism, however, always also have the effect of hiding from many the problematic assumptions and aims of this movement, which are clearly discernible in Kristol too and about which much can of course be read elsewhere in this blog. The in some respects somewhat unconvincing development away from the American Trotskyism that was, ever since the 1930s, a main driving force of American anti-communism (i.e., anti-Stalinism), is here described by one of its pioneers. A method should be found, I suggest, of citing the valid neoconservative criticism of contemporary cultural radicalism as disentangled and separated from the larger neoconserative framework.