Rating: 
Summary: Hurray for America, the haven for immigrants & last gr8 hope
Review: The book opens with a rendition of American the Beautiful. Norman Podhoretz, Commentary Mag bigwig and Dean of America's neo Conservatives recollects his life and fight against Marxists and the ACLU. Born in Brownsville, the son of Jewish immigrants (Julius/Joel and Helen/Henya), Norman (Naphtali) attended public schools and sang Catholic hymns taught by Irish spinsters. He fills this ode to America with fabulous stories and anecdotes, as he recounts his youth and Liberalism and maturation as a Conservative. Along the way he continues his ode to those peddlers who helped create the America we know today. The book is a ringing Bell that counters what William F Buckley refers to as the keening sound of complaints against the USA. Podhoretz spins good yarns. I enjoyed his story about his graduation from Columbia, and receipt of a Fellowship to "Oxbridge." The other recipient turned out to be the son of the woman from Norman's mother's village. She and his his mother had shared the trip from Europe to Ellis Island and had lost touch over the decades. Another great story was a recollection of Daniel Bell poking fun at his future brother-in-law Alfred Kazin. Kazin, writing "On Native Ground", spoke of OUR forests. Bell found it weird to refer to OUR forests, as if urban working class Jews from NYC were Americans. Or when famed Professor of Philosophy Sidney Morgenbesser, a lapsed rabbi, found it bizarre that he was teaching undergrads about Saint Augustine. I was shocked by these quaint attitudes til I was even more shocked that thirty years later, Podhoretz recounts, Gore Vidal still writes about Jews as being not "us" or being dual loyalists. Part 4 of the book, titled "Dayyenu American-style," recounts Podhoretz's points of gratitude and his love of country. I suggest that the diligent reader pair this book with Dershowitz's "Chutzpah."
Rating:
Summary: Podhoretz: going squishy on us?
Review: When reading anything by Norman Podhoretz, I usually have to unclench my teeth at least once an hour. To my surprise, I made it through the entire book in a single day, and my blood pressure never rose into the red zone.This book is far more autobiographical than anything Podhoretz has written (that I've read to date), and anyone seeking to demonize him as a humorless reactionary will have trouble doing so after reading his portraits of his grandparents and parents. Of course, Podhoretz hasn't changed THAT much, and along the way he makes excursions into both non-contentious history (the uneasy role of the American intellectual) and highly partisan recountings of his own battles (especially around the 1960s). This is the cultural critic we know and love/hate, and Podhoretz is at the top of the form (except for a few vicious ad hominem attacks reminiscent of those in "Ex-Friends"). Podhoretz also devotes a great deal of space to the nature of Jewish identity in this book, using his family history as a springboard. This is a little more sentimental than most of his writing, but still of high quality. This is not vintage Podhoretz, due to the autobiographical framework, which forces the author to fit his observations into a tighter structure than he is used to. He also seems to have mellowed a bit with age. However, his powers are as sharp as ever, and it is refreshing to see him deploy them in a new context.
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