Bohemian Bolsheviks offers a sharp reminder that historical narrative not only shapes our sense of the terrain under our feet, but the horizon in front of us.
Marxist political alignment engages a welter of intimate and biographical factors enriching the record of a varied history of fiction, poetry, literary criticism, and other intellectual practices. In this book, Alan Wald sets out to explore a field of study which is marked by the enduring paradoxes of modernity. The rubric “Bohemian Bolsheviks” perfectly captures Wald’s sustained fascination with persistent contradictions between the image of Left political commitment and the actuality of experience, especially in relation to cultural work and cultural workers.
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“In this fascinating collection of essays, Marxist scholar Alan Wald discusses ‘Literary Radicalism’, with empathy, subtlety and openness, and with an exceptional gift for illuminating the links between culture, protest, passion and politics. Readers will discover a new way of seeing the history of American literature.”
—Michael Löwy, author of Franz Kafka, Subversive Dreamer
“Alan Wald is a generous archive of the many-sided lives of US literary radicals within and beyond Communism [...]. Through careful research and elegant readings, his work reveals hidden recesses within the quirky individuals who comprise collective struggle. [...] His lifetime study of the ‘messy’ histories and politics of literary radicalism will inspire future generations to reframe our understanding of the past—and confront confront the present.”
—Paula Rabinowitz, University of Minnesota -
“Like all of Wald’s scholarship, this volume will provoke serious discussion about the historical contributions that the socialist cultural movements have made to political change.”
—Joel Wendland-Liu, Socialism and Democracy
“[A] remarkable addition to [Wald's] legacy, [and] a generous dramatis personae of the literary left, both to its familiar headliners and lesser-known hidden gems.”
—Jon Hoel, Pittsburgh Review of Books
Other books by Alan Wald
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Trotskyism in the United States
Edited by George Breitman, Paul Le Blanc, et al.