One of the challenges of reworking my dissertation into a book involves how to integrate race into my analysis of postwar public intellectuals. The problem is one of silence. In their work published before the early 1960s, the “New York intellectuals” rarely explored the problem of the color line, and when they did, the issue usually appeared as a small side note to illustrate a separate point they were making, such as the provincialism of certain segments of the country or the dynamics of American class relations. Race and racism itself, as a subject deserving of extended analysis and attention, Read more