When the Going Was Good

American Life in the Fifties

Jeffrey Hart



In the course of covering his student years at Dartmouth, Hart makes several brief references to Rosenstock-Huessy; he later published a tribute to his teacher.

The reviewer for Kirkus Reviews wrote: “The Fifties were not boring at all, according to longtime Dartmouth conservative and National Review editor Hart. Rather, they were a time of intellectual, political, athletic, and artistic ferment–a period ‘which in retrospect seems to grow ever more attractive.’ …He followed the modern poets, so every Columbia reading by Eliot or Auden gets its page. However, such works as Andersonville, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, and Advise and Consent are also cited as evidence that ‘to find anything comparable you had to go all the way back to the Twenties.’ As for politics: ‘You only have to cite the names Hiss, Chambers, [and] Rosenberg. . . to begin to recall the political intensity of the period…’ A personalized pastiche–introduced by William Buckley–for others of a like persuasion.”

Hardcover, 304 pages.