In his lifetime Alfred Kazin has been many things...student, scholar, journalist, critic, activist. But he has also maintained contact with his private self, his spiritual and intellectual self, and in this book we share this wellspring of his creativity. Kazin got his start with the New Republic, later served at Fortune with James Agee in the reign of Henry Luce. He knew wartime London; traveled extensively after the war in Italy, Germany, Russia and Israel. His moves along the continuum have always pushed him in one direction--toward truth. "New York itself is a central character in his book as in his life--a life superbly told, in a book of permanent importance to anyone who cares about American writing and writers." (Publisher's Source)