{"product_id":"making-it-isbn-9781681370804","title":"Making It","description":"\u003cb\u003eA controversial memoir about American intellectual life and academia and the relationship between politics, money, and education.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNorman Podhoretz, the son of Jewish immigrants, grew up in the tough Brownsville section of Brooklyn, attended Columbia University on a scholarship, and later received degrees from the Jewish Theological Seminary and Cambridge University. \u003ci\u003eMaking It \u003c\/i\u003eis his blistering account of fighting his way out of Brooklyn and into, then out of, the Ivory Tower, of his military service, and finally of his induction into the ranks of what he calls “the Family,” the small group of left-wing and largely Jewish critics and writers whose opinions came to dominate and increasingly politicize the American literary scene in the fifties and sixties. It is a Balzacian story of raw talent and relentless and ruthless ambition. It is also a closely observed and in many ways still-pertinent analysis of the tense and more than a little duplicitous relationship that exists in America between intellect and imagination, money, social status, and power.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Family responded to the book with outrage, and Podhoretz soon turned no less angrily on them, becoming the fierce neoconservative he remains to this day. Fifty years after its first publication, this controversial and legendary book remains a riveting autobiography, a book that can be painfully revealing about the complex convictions and needs of a complicated man as well as a fascinating and essential document of mid-century American cultural life.\"A frank and honest book...high-stepping brilliance...tactfully and   touchingly revealing of the fearful ambitions of Podhoretz’s family....   Podhoretz has ‘allowed himself to be fully known’ and so may give the   key to the B.Y.M. (Bright Young Men) of the next generation, which will   allow them to shuck the iron mask of premature intellectual good taste   and join in the common pursuit of self-knowledge and self-expression.\"  —Frederic Raphael, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \"This masterpiece  of American autobiography is the tale of a striving,   self-mythologized, and nearly Melvillean figure crashing toward his own   salvation—and more.... Nearly 50 years on, it’s clear that, to   paraphrase Dostoevsky on Gogol, we all come out from Podhoretz’s   overcoat.\" —Lee Smith, \u003ci\u003eTablet\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"One can’t really  understand the state of so-called highbrow culture  today without first  coming to terms with the career of Norman Podhoretz.  Along with Jason  and Barbara Epstein, Robert Silvers, Susan Sontag,  Norman Mailer and a  few others (the ‘children’ of Edmund Wilson, Lionel  Trilling and Philip  Rahv), Mr. Podhoretz reconceived the very idea of  what it means to be  an intellectual.\" —Robert S. Boynton, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Observer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Making It\u003c\/i\u003e was a brave and original book.\" —Robert Fulford, \u003ci\u003eThe Globe and Mail\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Podhoretz’s analysis of the power of the family is penetrating.\" —Andrew M. Greeley, \u003ci\u003eThe Reporter\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eOne can’t really understand the state of so-called highbrow culture today without first coming to terms with the career of Norman Podhoretz. Along with Jason and Barbara Epstein, Robert Silvers, Susan Sontag, Norman Mailer and a few others (the ‘children’ of Edmund Wilson, Lionel Trilling and Philip Rahv), Mr. Podhoretz reconceived the very idea of what it means to be an intellectual.\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe New York Observer\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eNorman Podhoretz\u003c\/b\u003e (1930 - 2025) was author, editor, and political and cultural critic. He was the editor of \u003ci\u003eCommentary \u003c\/i\u003efrom 1960 to 1995 and wrote twelve books, including \u003ci\u003eWorld War IV\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Prophets\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eEx-Friends\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eWhy Are Jews Liberals?\u003c\/i\u003e and his autobiograhy \u003ci\u003eMaking It.\u003c\/i\u003e He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTerry Teachout\u003c\/b\u003e (1956 - 2022) was the drama critic for \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e and the critic-at-large for \u003ci\u003eCommentary\u003c\/i\u003e. He has written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, Duke Ellington, and H. L. Mencken; the libretti for three operas by Paul Moravec; and a play, \u003ci\u003eSatchmo at the Waldorf\u003c\/i\u003e, that has been produced off-Broadway and throughout America.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302840357093,"sku":"NP9781681370804","price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781681370804.jpg?v=1767732164","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/making-it-isbn-9781681370804","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}