Alan Wald is a member of the editorial boards of Against the Current and Science & Society and was appointed the H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor at the University of Michigan in 2007.
Chan Davis, who died last month at the age of 96, faced down McCarthyite blacklists and imprisonment to pursue a brilliant academic career. Davis knew how to change and learn from political experience, but he always remained loyal to his socialist principles.
For the young Max Eastman, socialism meant open inquiry, cultural experimentation — and above all, freedom.
James Burnham mutated from firebrand revolutionary to National Review co-editor, and today he is getting a second life all over the conservative press.