Podhoretz, Norman

Podhoretz, Norman pŏdhôrˈəts [key], 1930–, American editor and essayist, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., studied Columbia (B.A., 1950), Cambridge. As editor in chief (1960–95) of Commentary, he turned the Jewish monthly into an influential forum for social criticism and American neoconservatism. He subsequently became a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a think tank. He has written several memoirs, including Making It (1967), which traces his rise to power among New York intellectuals (and ruined his reputation with his peers after publication), and Breaking Ranks (1979), which explains his switch from liberalism to neoconservatism. His World War IV: The Long Struggle against Islamofascism (2007) outlines Podhoretz's approach to American policy in the Middle East and his support of President George W. Bush.

See The Norman Podhoretz Reader (2004, ed. by T. L. Jeffers); biography by T. L. Jeffers (2010).

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