American Procession

Alfred Kazin (1915–1998) was Distinguished Professor of English, Emeritus, at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and author and editor of many books, including A Writer’s America: Landscape in American Literature.

With An American Procession, Alfred Kazin confirms a reservation in the front tier of the reviewing stand, next to his eminent predecessors Van Wyck Brooks and Edmund Wilson. I have nothing but praise for An American Procession. Alfred Kazin himself can write brilliantly, catching the ‘very essence’ of an author in an epithet or a phrase… He is a first-rate comprehender, explainer, and savorer. The power of his book lies, in the last analysis, in Mr. Kazin’s profound instinct for style.