Contents

December 3, 1964 • Volume 3, Number 8

LETTERS

Contributors

Frederick Crews is a fellow of the Institute for Science in Medicine. His most recent book is Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays. (October 2011)

J. H. Elliott is Regius Professor Emeritus of Modern History at Oxford. His most recent volume of essays, Spain, Europe and the Wider World, 1500–1800, was published in 2009. (August 2011)

Paul Goodman (1911–1972) was an American social critic, psychologist, poet, novelist, and anarchist, whose writings appeared in Politics, Partisan Review, The New Republic, Commentary, The New Leader, Dissent, and The New York Review of Books. He published several well-regarded but little-known books in a variety of fields—including city planning, Gestalt therapy, educational reform, literary criticism, and politics—before Growing Up Absurd, cancelled by its original publisher and turned down by a further eighteen, was brought out by Random House in 1960 and became an instant bestseller. Its author became an influential leader of the New Left and anti-war movements and a model for a new generation of critics like Susan Sontag, who wrote: “There is no living American writer for whom I have left the same simple curiosity to read as quickly as possible anything he wrote on any subject.” “Paul Goodman Changed My Life,” a 2011 documentary directed by Jonathan Lee and distributed by Zeitgeist Films, continues to play at film festivals and independent cinemas. The film received excellent reviews in such publications as The New York Times, Variety, The New York Post, Village Voice, and Time Out New York.

John Gross’s most recent book is A Double Thread, a memoir. He is the editor of The Oxford Book of Parodies, which will be published in September. (April 2010)