ABSTRACT
The disparaging characterization of Nathan Glazer is from social scientist Daniel Lerner, commenting on Glazer's critical review of Samuel Stouffer's The American Soldier in the November 1949 issue of the recently launched Commentary. In a retrospective piece about Commentary during its first years of publication, Glazer expresses surprise and belated criticism of himself and his colleagues for being so out of touch with their Jewish roots, including the various Jewish defense and communal organizations. He makes a similar but more trenchant point in "Jewish Intellectuals", a contribution to the sixtieth anniversary issue of Partisan Review. He reflects on "why a magazine that was in such large measure created by Jewish editors and writers had so little to say about Jews, Jewishness, or Judaism". Like Tocqueville and Riesman, Glazer has devoted much of his scholarly work to understanding and writing about the importance of culture as a critical but elusive force in society and politics.
