CRITICISM

Halkin, Hillel. “Smashing the Idols.” Commentary 114, no. 4 (November 2002): 65-70.

Halkin asserts that Podhoretz employs a “layman's” perspective in The Prophets: Who They Were, What They Are, which renders the subject material both accessible and satisfying.

Hitchens, Christopher. “No End of a Lesson.” Nation 234, no. 13 (3 April 1982): 403-04.

Hitchens derides Podhoretz's dominant themes in Why We Were in Vietnam, questioning what motivated the author to write such a flawed work.

Jeffers, Thomas L. “Norman Podhoretz's Discourses on America.” Hudson Review 54, no. 2 (summer 2001): 202-28.

Jeffers investigates Podhoretz's racial, religious, and political opinions, as portrayed in the author's past works as well as his memoir My Love Affair with America.

Leonard, John. “A Partisan's Review.” Nation 268, no. 11 (22 March 1999): 25-9.

Leonard comments that Ex-Friends: Falling out with Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt, and Norman Mailer contains the same shallowness and egotism he found in Podhoretz's previous works.

Packer, George. “With Friends Like These.” Dissent 46, no. 1 (winter 1999): 99-104.

Packer contends that the “insights” contained in Ex-Friends: Falling out with Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt, and Norman Mailer are lifted almost verbatim from Podhoretz's earlier memoirs.

Thompson, W. Scott. “The Importance of Being Norman.” Washington Monthly 32, no. 9 (September 2000): 60.

Thompson argues that, although My Love Affair with America portrays Podhoretz as an excellent socio-political commentator, the work ultimately reads as a defensive and unsteady diatribe.

Additional coverage of Podhoretz's life and career is contained in the following sources published by the Gale Group: American Writers Supplement, Vol. 8; Contemporary Authors, Vols. 9-12R; Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Vols. 7, 78; and Literature Resource Center.