cover image A Rebel in Defense of Tradition: The Life and Politics of Dwight MacDonald

A Rebel in Defense of Tradition: The Life and Politics of Dwight MacDonald

Michael Wreszin. Basic Books, $30 (590pp) ISBN 978-0-465-01739-3

The upper-middle class, Yale-educated Macdonald (1906-1982) became a leftist activist in the 1930s, edited the anti-Stalinist Partisan Review , supported Trotsky but ultimately renounced Marxism for a pacifist anarchism opposed to the bureaucratic, anti-humanistic tendencies he saw in corporate capitalism and Communism alike. A self-proclaimed cultural elitist, Macdonald, as a writer for the New Yorker and Esquire , railed against the mindless trash of pop culture while defending modernism and the avant-garde. In this astute biography, Wreszin, a professor of history at Queens College, New York City, fair-mindedly appraises Macdonald's many-sided career as opponent of U.S. entry into WW II, foe of McCarthyism, civil rights activist, Vietnam war protestor and self-appointed guardian of genuine culture. He also presents much personal material about Macdonald's failed marriage, his love affairs, nudism, psychoanalysis and the drinking and erratic behavior of his last years. Photos. (Apr.)