American Radical

Popular Front columnist and New Deal propagandist, fearless opponent of McCarthyism and feared scourge of official liars, I. F. Stone (1907-1989)- magnetic, witty, indefatigable-left a permanent mark on our politics and culture. A college dropout, he was already an influential newsman by the age of twenty-five, enjoying extraordinary access to key figures in Washington and New York. Guttenplan finds the key to Stone's achievements throughout his singular career-not just in the celebrated I. F. Stone's Weekly-lay in the force and passion of his political commitments. Stone's calm and forensic yet devastating reports on American politics and institutions sprang from a radical faith in the long-term prospects for American democracy. In an era when the old radical questions-about war, the economy, health care, and the right to dissent-are suddenly new again, Guttenplan's lively, provocative book makes clear why so many of Stone's pronouncements have acquired the force of prophecy.