Irving Howe (1920-1993), was born Irving Horenstein, the son of immigrants who ran a small grocery store that went out of business during the Great Depression.

Howe entered radical politics as a member of the Young People's Socialist League and through it graduated to Max Shachtman's Workers Party and after 1948 the Independent Socialist League of which he was a central leader. He then left the ISL to begin the magazine Dissent.

He graduated from City College in 1940, was the founding editor of Dissent Magazine, Distinguished Professor of Literature, City University of New York (CUNY). He was a noted editor of Yiddish literature who discovered the author Isaac Bashevis Singer for an English-speaking audience. Coined the phrase "New York Jewish Intellectual ". Founded Democratic Socialists of America . He wrote an autobiography A Margin Of Hope (1982 ISBN 0151571384) as well as many other works, such as World of Our FathersISBN 0-8052-0928-X .

External links

• from The New York Intellectuals, by Alan M. Wald

• Arguing the World a PBS documentary