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The Controversialist: Arguments with Everyone, Left Right and Center
Featured in the Wall Street Journal
From his deep involvement in the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s to his almost forty years at the head of the New Republic, Martin Peretz traces his personal history alongside those of the cultural and political centers—Harvard, Wall Street, Washington—in which he was a key player for decades.
From 1974 to 2012, during his years as publisher and editor-in-chief of the New Republic, Martin Peretz was a familiar presence on the political scene. In its time under his leadership, the magazine was always fresh, erudite, contrarian, and brave. Anyone interested in finding out the most distinctive expert takes on the issues that mattered—whether they be domestic or international, cultural or political—knew that the New Republic was required reading.
The Controversialist begins in a vibrant but tragedy-stricken community of Yiddish Jews in his native Bronx and takes Peretz, blessed with that rare trait of always being in the right place at the right time, into the same rooms as some of the most prominent writers, thinkers, businessmen, activists, and politicians of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Peretz’s insights into his relationships with these men and women—many of them his students, teachers, colleagues, friends, and, of course, enemies—are both original and illuminating.
Through his examination of the personalities, not least his own, at the center of the events that have defined the postwar and neoliberal decades, Peretz makes a rich and compelling argument for the ideals that have been the focus of his liberalism, democracy, and Zionism. In revisiting this rich life, he considers, too, what will come next now that those ideals are no longer assured.
From his deep involvement in the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s to his almost forty years at the head of the New Republic, Martin Peretz traces his personal history alongside those of the cultural and political centers—Harvard, Wall Street, Washington—in which he was a key player for decades.
From 1974 to 2012, during his years as publisher and editor-in-chief of the New Republic, Martin Peretz was a familiar presence on the political scene. In its time under his leadership, the magazine was always fresh, erudite, contrarian, and brave. Anyone interested in finding out the most distinctive expert takes on the issues that mattered—whether they be domestic or international, cultural or political—knew that the New Republic was required reading.
The Controversialist begins in a vibrant but tragedy-stricken community of Yiddish Jews in his native Bronx and takes Peretz, blessed with that rare trait of always being in the right place at the right time, into the same rooms as some of the most prominent writers, thinkers, businessmen, activists, and politicians of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Peretz’s insights into his relationships with these men and women—many of them his students, teachers, colleagues, friends, and, of course, enemies—are both original and illuminating.
Through his examination of the personalities, not least his own, at the center of the events that have defined the postwar and neoliberal decades, Peretz makes a rich and compelling argument for the ideals that have been the focus of his liberalism, democracy, and Zionism. In revisiting this rich life, he considers, too, what will come next now that those ideals are no longer assured.
352 pages, Hardcover
Published July 11, 2023
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107 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 17, 2023
The Controversialist by Martin Perez (July 11, 2023, 386 pages) is Peretz’ memoir about his life, primarily the nearly forty years he spent at the helm of the New Republic magazine. What is fascinating is just how much Peretz came to know intimately people who became movers and shakers in the political world from Anthony Blinken to Albert Gore to Caroline Kennedy to Susan Sontag and John Kerry. By teaching at Harvard and putting out a preeminent political journal that influenced and shaped policy in D.C. and NYC, Peretz had an insider’s seat at every table and gathering in the last forty years.
It is a fascinating story both in terms of biographical anecdotes and political history, much of which looks so different in the clear light years later. Often though, there may be a bit too much name-dropping. Also, recent history is given rather short coverage. Despite these shortcomings, it is a fascinating read and highly recommended.
It is a fascinating story both in terms of biographical anecdotes and political history, much of which looks so different in the clear light years later. Often though, there may be a bit too much name-dropping. Also, recent history is given rather short coverage. Despite these shortcomings, it is a fascinating read and highly recommended.
Read
April 4, 2024I loved this one.
It's the author's memoir, written from the vantage point of his mid-eighties. It's also a history of the people, the politics, and the crises of my lifetime. It's an intellectual history of the times. It's a review of everything that has swept by in the onrushing news cycle, as seen through the author's eyes. And because Martin Peretz was in the thick of things, the book has a Zelig-like aspect, or, alternatively, like a Forrest Gump who is intellectually brilliant and possessed of a phenomenal memory.
I don't see the name dropping of which some readers have accused him. The names are part of the memoir, for goodness sake! Nor do I see him as arguing, not in this book at least. He does say he enjoys arguing, but this book is a recounting of the observations, interactions and events of a lifetime. I might not agree with everything; it's more like listening and learning, and people certainly might disagree. For example, he has the conventional view of Yasser Arafat, that he was a terrorist, somebody not to be trusted, with whom we couldn't deal. Walter Russell Mead, whose book I recently read, thinks Arafat was an SOB, but he was our SOB, and was the one person who could have ruthlessly cracked heads together in the region, could have exerted control over competing forces. Now, that struck me as an unusual opinion. Don't know which was right, but there is more than one opinion, and I don't see that as "controversial." I enjoyed hearing Martin Peretz' opinions. They were refreshing and stimulating.
He describes himself as a left-leaning centrist. Some observers think he's moved to the right, but actually that could be because the left ... moved left. (Or more nearly what's said to be left)
He begins with what it was like to grow up in the '40s and '50s, son of immigrants. Although they weren't survivors, they lost much family and many friends. His father had a familiar immigrants love affair with America; to his mother, America was "strange."
He entered college and became established before the youth-revolution uprootings that happened to some who were a decade or so younger. His mentors and classmates were often historical icons for me. Herbert Marcuse for example. He entered just as intellectual circles were opening up to Jews. It was a time of productive intellectual foment, and he was in the middle of it.
On the "controversialist" aspect, it must have been Wikipedia where I saw he'd been caricatured in two novels. He must have gotten under somebody's skin. But I experienced him more as a "conversationalist" than a controversialist.
I listened first to the audiobook (taking some notes along the way). Now I've gotten hold of the book, and it's even more conversational. I kept being pulled into rereading. I'll try and get my local book to read it, and then I'll get to too.
He follows through with his 50 years at Harvard and his time as editor/owner of The New Republic, back when it was an influential periodical. Yes, his rich wife bought it for him, but he made it go for nearly 40 years.
He is unhappy with how the world turned out. I should say he's writing before October 7, and like everybody else he didn't see it coming and in that sense has it wrong. But some of his observations seem to anticipate what was to come. About how the world turned out, it is not the world he and his cohorts struggled to issue into being. He criticizes presidents who began to operate out of ideology, from the top down, as he puts it, rather than from lived experience and hard thinking. The Clintons, for example, and that's a new criticism I haven't heard before, so something to think about. He sees the world careening increasingly unmoored without the traditional institutions to rely on.
He was an Al Gore man. Nice to hear those views too since we were left largely with the ridicule. Wouldn't the world have been different?
He also has a gift of knowing himself and of honesty that is so important for a writer.
I went to search the internet and see if he'd had anything to say regarding October 7 and subsequent. I didn't find that, but I found the admiring reviews and then the scathing ones.
In his book he talked about having gotten in trouble blogging. He said for him blogging represented the pillow talk he would have had with his wife had they still been married. He said he'd spent a lifetime saying what he wanted to say and had continued. He was trying to talk about Muslim-on-Muslim deaths in the Middle East, I think -- a loaded topic -- and he got in trouble, was called Islamophobic, and became the victim of an attempted cancellation. Or maybe he was cancelled.
And the reviews are as polarized as our world.
I didn't find the book coarse. Or racist.
But some of those opinions had been reverberating and gotten to me, making me ambivalent about reading this book. I'm glad I did.
I guess he's having some opinions you're not supposed to have. Or not humble enough for some, though I didn't quite see that. I guess it's the opinions and being off the approved message.
You can read for yourself those various reviews as well as the blog post that got him in hot water.
So I'd enjoy seeing what my friends think of his book.
Let me end with what the protesters were chanting after his problematic blog post and when his students of 50 years were trying to honor him.
Doesn't that foretell what was coming down the pike?
It's the author's memoir, written from the vantage point of his mid-eighties. It's also a history of the people, the politics, and the crises of my lifetime. It's an intellectual history of the times. It's a review of everything that has swept by in the onrushing news cycle, as seen through the author's eyes. And because Martin Peretz was in the thick of things, the book has a Zelig-like aspect, or, alternatively, like a Forrest Gump who is intellectually brilliant and possessed of a phenomenal memory.
I don't see the name dropping of which some readers have accused him. The names are part of the memoir, for goodness sake! Nor do I see him as arguing, not in this book at least. He does say he enjoys arguing, but this book is a recounting of the observations, interactions and events of a lifetime. I might not agree with everything; it's more like listening and learning, and people certainly might disagree. For example, he has the conventional view of Yasser Arafat, that he was a terrorist, somebody not to be trusted, with whom we couldn't deal. Walter Russell Mead, whose book I recently read, thinks Arafat was an SOB, but he was our SOB, and was the one person who could have ruthlessly cracked heads together in the region, could have exerted control over competing forces. Now, that struck me as an unusual opinion. Don't know which was right, but there is more than one opinion, and I don't see that as "controversial." I enjoyed hearing Martin Peretz' opinions. They were refreshing and stimulating.
He describes himself as a left-leaning centrist. Some observers think he's moved to the right, but actually that could be because the left ... moved left. (Or more nearly what's said to be left)
He begins with what it was like to grow up in the '40s and '50s, son of immigrants. Although they weren't survivors, they lost much family and many friends. His father had a familiar immigrants love affair with America; to his mother, America was "strange."
He entered college and became established before the youth-revolution uprootings that happened to some who were a decade or so younger. His mentors and classmates were often historical icons for me. Herbert Marcuse for example. He entered just as intellectual circles were opening up to Jews. It was a time of productive intellectual foment, and he was in the middle of it.
On the "controversialist" aspect, it must have been Wikipedia where I saw he'd been caricatured in two novels. He must have gotten under somebody's skin. But I experienced him more as a "conversationalist" than a controversialist.
I listened first to the audiobook (taking some notes along the way). Now I've gotten hold of the book, and it's even more conversational. I kept being pulled into rereading. I'll try and get my local book to read it, and then I'll get to too.
He follows through with his 50 years at Harvard and his time as editor/owner of The New Republic, back when it was an influential periodical. Yes, his rich wife bought it for him, but he made it go for nearly 40 years.
He is unhappy with how the world turned out. I should say he's writing before October 7, and like everybody else he didn't see it coming and in that sense has it wrong. But some of his observations seem to anticipate what was to come. About how the world turned out, it is not the world he and his cohorts struggled to issue into being. He criticizes presidents who began to operate out of ideology, from the top down, as he puts it, rather than from lived experience and hard thinking. The Clintons, for example, and that's a new criticism I haven't heard before, so something to think about. He sees the world careening increasingly unmoored without the traditional institutions to rely on.
He was an Al Gore man. Nice to hear those views too since we were left largely with the ridicule. Wouldn't the world have been different?
He also has a gift of knowing himself and of honesty that is so important for a writer.
I went to search the internet and see if he'd had anything to say regarding October 7 and subsequent. I didn't find that, but I found the admiring reviews and then the scathing ones.
In his book he talked about having gotten in trouble blogging. He said for him blogging represented the pillow talk he would have had with his wife had they still been married. He said he'd spent a lifetime saying what he wanted to say and had continued. He was trying to talk about Muslim-on-Muslim deaths in the Middle East, I think -- a loaded topic -- and he got in trouble, was called Islamophobic, and became the victim of an attempted cancellation. Or maybe he was cancelled.
And the reviews are as polarized as our world.
I didn't find the book coarse. Or racist.
But some of those opinions had been reverberating and gotten to me, making me ambivalent about reading this book. I'm glad I did.
I guess he's having some opinions you're not supposed to have. Or not humble enough for some, though I didn't quite see that. I guess it's the opinions and being off the approved message.
You can read for yourself those various reviews as well as the blog post that got him in hot water.
So I'd enjoy seeing what my friends think of his book.
Let me end with what the protesters were chanting after his problematic blog post and when his students of 50 years were trying to honor him.
Harvard. Harvard. shame on you
Honoring a racist...fool
Doesn't that foretell what was coming down the pike?
July 11, 2023
Full disclosure: I’m a close friend of Martin Peretz (or “Marty” which those close to him call him). As such, I was given an advanced copy of this book in late June 2023. I am also stating this because, although I’d like to think I have no conscious (positive) bias, if my review reads as overly-flattering, that may be why. But please know that I will remain as objective as possible in my review of this book.
As of writing this review, I have not finished reading this book; in fact, I’m only on the first page. That said, I expect to finish this book before its official release on July 11, and as a dear friend of Marty’s, I would love for my review to be one of the first on this site. As soon as I finish this book, I will edit this and put my full review of the book.
***
Here are two great articles about the book that I’d recommend you read to get a sense as to what this book is about:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-cont...
https://www.nysun.com/article/marty-p...
What I can tell you is you are in for a wonderful, whimsical ride with this book. Mr. Peretz’s intellect is searing, his intelligence preternatural, and his life ever-so rich with amazing experiences.
As of writing this review, I have not finished reading this book; in fact, I’m only on the first page. That said, I expect to finish this book before its official release on July 11, and as a dear friend of Marty’s, I would love for my review to be one of the first on this site. As soon as I finish this book, I will edit this and put my full review of the book.
***
Here are two great articles about the book that I’d recommend you read to get a sense as to what this book is about:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-cont...
https://www.nysun.com/article/marty-p...
What I can tell you is you are in for a wonderful, whimsical ride with this book. Mr. Peretz’s intellect is searing, his intelligence preternatural, and his life ever-so rich with amazing experiences.
Want to read
July 9, 2023WSJ review:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-cont...
(Paywalled. As always, I'm happy to email a copy to non-subscribers)
Excerpt:
“I am a marginalized man,” writes Mr. Peretz in “The Controversialist,” his crackling, candid memoir. Politically, he’s a Democrat, but he feels like an alien in a party that makes “darlings” of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar and that embraces positions that are far to the left of his own undogmatic, market-oriented liberalism. The New Republic under his heterodox stewardship published Charles Murray on racial disparities in IQ (at the time when he co-authored “The Bell Curve,” a book regarded by many Americans as incendiary). The magazine had also supported the invasion of Iraq, which led the Nation to describe him as a “rabid neocon”; and, before that, had defended the arming of the Nicaraguan Contras, on the grounds that “authoritarians,” while unlovely, were less odious than “totalitarians.”
Maybe? TBP early July 2023.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-cont...
(Paywalled. As always, I'm happy to email a copy to non-subscribers)
Excerpt:
“I am a marginalized man,” writes Mr. Peretz in “The Controversialist,” his crackling, candid memoir. Politically, he’s a Democrat, but he feels like an alien in a party that makes “darlings” of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar and that embraces positions that are far to the left of his own undogmatic, market-oriented liberalism. The New Republic under his heterodox stewardship published Charles Murray on racial disparities in IQ (at the time when he co-authored “The Bell Curve,” a book regarded by many Americans as incendiary). The magazine had also supported the invasion of Iraq, which led the Nation to describe him as a “rabid neocon”; and, before that, had defended the arming of the Nicaraguan Contras, on the grounds that “authoritarians,” while unlovely, were less odious than “totalitarians.”
Maybe? TBP early July 2023.
August 15, 2023
Not exactly a memoir … more an explanation of one man’s politics.
I liked reading this book because I knew so many of the people. Years ago I encouraged the author to write what I hoped would *be* a memoir — and which he refers to as such This is not a memoir. Of family life all we’re told is that he hated his father, there’s really nothing about his mother, and I don’t think he mentioned that he went to Bronx Science for high school. I might be in error about this particular item, but there is almost nothing about childhood.
He’s very generous with his disdain for really everyone who ever disagreed with him.
I liked reading this book because I knew so many of the people. Years ago I encouraged the author to write what I hoped would *be* a memoir — and which he refers to as such This is not a memoir. Of family life all we’re told is that he hated his father, there’s really nothing about his mother, and I don’t think he mentioned that he went to Bronx Science for high school. I might be in error about this particular item, but there is almost nothing about childhood.
He’s very generous with his disdain for really everyone who ever disagreed with him.
Read
September 20, 2023This one came to my attention through an excerpt published on Tablet. The behind-the-scenes glimpses of Harvard and The New Republic are likely to interest those with connections to/familiarity with those institutions.
April 22, 2024
I never would have picked this one up until I saw someone describe it on Twitter as a surprisingly interesting account of American political and intellectual life over the last sixty years (I'm paraphrasing, it's been months). Anyway, that was correct! This is Peretz's admittedly biased but also incisive, take-no-prisoners account of both American life and America's role in the world, told through the lens of his magazine and his thinking.
He's most interesting in his questioning of shibboleths all around, probably most significantly those of Democrats and the left...not in a way that's an endorsement of Republicans, but because that's who he identifies with and who he wants to see succeed. He's very insightful and pragmatic, e.g. pointing out:
--"The Republicans had never been my party, so I mainly saw Trump as a lesson to Democrats, a tribal backlash to their arrogant elitism and one-worldism. When Hillary lost, they didn’t take it as a sign of the limits of their rationalist vision—they took it as an existential threat. Never considering their own appeal to voters might want a rethink, that history was no longer looking the way they liked it, they declared 'resistance' against the elected president."
--"What the article didn’t say is that Soros himself helped cause the tribal backlash and, in the process, he has proven the limits of his own vision: the open society and the open market that came with it, what we call neoliberalism or globalization, is not a beneficial thing when it’s pushed to its extremes—when it means the denuding of the nation-state or of national identity."
It's refreshing in its willingness to name names, and it's a wonderfully loving portrait of how he feels about his ex-wife Anne, to whom he was married for decades despite being gay. Ultimately he glosses over his failings, not least that his close friend Leon Wieseltier had a long history of sexual impropriety with female writers at TNR. Some bridges are too far for even Peretz to cross, I suppose.
He's most interesting in his questioning of shibboleths all around, probably most significantly those of Democrats and the left...not in a way that's an endorsement of Republicans, but because that's who he identifies with and who he wants to see succeed. He's very insightful and pragmatic, e.g. pointing out:
--"The Republicans had never been my party, so I mainly saw Trump as a lesson to Democrats, a tribal backlash to their arrogant elitism and one-worldism. When Hillary lost, they didn’t take it as a sign of the limits of their rationalist vision—they took it as an existential threat. Never considering their own appeal to voters might want a rethink, that history was no longer looking the way they liked it, they declared 'resistance' against the elected president."
--"What the article didn’t say is that Soros himself helped cause the tribal backlash and, in the process, he has proven the limits of his own vision: the open society and the open market that came with it, what we call neoliberalism or globalization, is not a beneficial thing when it’s pushed to its extremes—when it means the denuding of the nation-state or of national identity."
It's refreshing in its willingness to name names, and it's a wonderfully loving portrait of how he feels about his ex-wife Anne, to whom he was married for decades despite being gay. Ultimately he glosses over his failings, not least that his close friend Leon Wieseltier had a long history of sexual impropriety with female writers at TNR. Some bridges are too far for even Peretz to cross, I suppose.
December 3, 2023
This book is very uneven.
Peretz does a lot of name dropping, is rather dyspeptic, and seldom shows grace to others. He writes a little about his own personality, but I think that he should have engaged in more self-analysis because it may have allowed him to be more compassionate towards others. He came across as rather unlikable.
He tells some interesting stories and has some interesting insights, but he constantly repeats those insights. The book is supposed to be chronological, but it seems disorganized. And there are some glaring factual errors which make me question Peretz's credibility.
Alth0ugh it was often interesting, getting through this book was often a slog. In sum, I would not recommend this book. At bottom, it is your typical memoir: an exercise in score settling.
Peretz does a lot of name dropping, is rather dyspeptic, and seldom shows grace to others. He writes a little about his own personality, but I think that he should have engaged in more self-analysis because it may have allowed him to be more compassionate towards others. He came across as rather unlikable.
He tells some interesting stories and has some interesting insights, but he constantly repeats those insights. The book is supposed to be chronological, but it seems disorganized. And there are some glaring factual errors which make me question Peretz's credibility.
Alth0ugh it was often interesting, getting through this book was often a slog. In sum, I would not recommend this book. At bottom, it is your typical memoir: an exercise in score settling.
November 3, 2024
Peretz, longtime owner of The New Republic, describes life at Harvard as he was coming of age, the magazine’s groundbreaking support of gay marriage, his early and ongoing support of Al Gore, his disenchantment with the Clintons and later the Obama administration, and his steadfast faith and reliance on Judaism and support of Israel. Himself gay, Peretz provides disappointingly few details of his own sexual orientation but is, as he says himself, a skimmer of things, not a plumber. Some of his points are debatable, but Peretz seems to thrive on debate and strong feeling, even though he admires an incrementalist centrist like Gore. Privileged much of his adult life, Peretz nevertheless has a questioning, argumentative nature—likely to irritate some even as his no-holds-barred style and interest in the proverbial man on the street may make this book thought-provoking for others.
March 7, 2024
Since I have read the New Republic on and off for decades I thought I would read it's long time (but no longer) owner and publisher's memoir. It's ok, very conversational in tone. Lots of name-dropping, and snap judgments about character. He's a very smart guy and I agree with him a on a lot of issues but outside of a few really interesting anecdotes, there isn't much here. His good fortune in life was to marry an heiress. Of course, he was smart enough to get into Harvard and impress people there but one doesn't get a sense of a powerful intellect in this book so much as of a great talker and self-promoter. I don't think he's a bad persons and I am certainly impressed with all the important people he has known and influenced; this just isn't a very good memoir.
May 19, 2024
No life lived with conviction was ever conflict-free. Peretz, a long-time Harvard educator, who for four decades ran D.C.’s premier journal of ideas, The New Republic, had his fair share of enemies (not least the Clintons). But this memoir of a life in the thick of things is primarily about the commitments and friendships (with Al Gore and Yo-Yo Ma, among others) that make such a life worth living. A riveting guided tour of American politics, culture, Jewish life, and academia since the sixties, The Controversialist lays bare many hard truths about mainstream media and government, while delighting and inspiring you with stories of honest, loving, courageous people.
July 20, 2025
Bitchy, gossipy, name-dropping, self-indulgent and self-promoting, then ultimately a bit pissy and lachrymose. But, all that being said, what a good read. "The New Republic" along with "Commentary" were my political catechisms in college in the 80's. I miss the excitement of going to the newsstand, bringing it to a Berkeley coffeehouse, and poring over it every week. Nothing compares today.
September 11, 2023
I don't think I agree with Marty on several issues, and I think that's the point.
October 25, 2023
Good memoir. A little repetitive
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews