Bohemian Bolsheviks

Alan M. Wald, H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, is the author of eight books on United States Literary Radicalism, including The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s (1987).

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction– Marxism and Literary Radicalism: Methodology, Memory, and the Lure of Easy HistoryPart1 The Left in US Literature1 Inconvenient Truths: The Communist Conundrum in Life and Art2 The Culture War Over Literary Communism3 Imagined Solidarities: The Bolshevik Revolution and the Literary Left4 Reconstructing the ‘Humanscape’ of Left Culture and Commitment: An Interview with Alan Wald5 Noir and the Ebb of Radical HopePart2 Fiction and Poetry6 Steinbeck and the Proletarian Novel7 Back to the Future in Howard Fast’s Freedom Road8 American Poetry and the Popular Front9 The Murdered Dreams of Aaron Kramer: A Marxist Poet In The ‘American Century’10 Hero– International Brigade11 Marxism and the Modernist Poet: A Tale of Two DelmoresPart3 Gender and the Left12 Bohemian Bolsheviks After World WarII: A Minority Within a Minority13 Sanora Babb in Her Time and Ours14 ‘Sexing the Left: Interview with Alan M.Wald,’ by William J.Maxwell15 Wheelwright and His Kind16 Motley’s Men: The Queer Haunting of We Fished All Night17 The Trotskyist Time Forgot: The Permanent Rebellion of Nicolas Calas18 The Red and the QueerPart4 Race and Class19 The Marxist Imagination of Theodore Ward(September15, 1902–May8, 1983)20 Race and the Logic of Capital21 Protesting the Protest Novel: Richard Wright’s The Man Who Lived Underground22 The Black Internationalism of William Gardner Smith23 Blood on the Forge: A Masterful Proletarian Novel24 From ‘Triple Oppression’ to ‘Freedom Dreams’Part5 Commitment25 ‘A Seemingly Incongruous Alliance’: Bryan Palmer, Revolutionary Teamsters26 Trotsky: Between the Power and the Dream27 Fascinating Antifascism: Enzo Traverso’s Fire and Blood28 A Theater for the Poor: Cleveland and SDS/ERAP in the Mid-1960s29 Gramsci’s Gift30 H.Chandler Davis, a Lifelong Radical and a Moral Touchstone for the Left31 The Straight and the Crooked: BDS Versus Settler-ColonialismPart6 The Radical Vision32 Riddle Me This, Comrade: 100 Years of US Communism33 Protest, Passion, Politics34 Reaching for Revolution35 The Present of Future Things36 Astonished by the Present: The Impatient Life of Daniel Bensäid37 Missives for the Future: Michael Löwy’s Close Encounters with the US LeftBibliographyIndex

“Wald is a tour de force of American literary and cultural studies. He is the living expert on the subject of the US literary left, without whom many of his subjects may have been completely lost to time, due to neglect or intentional acts of suppression. He has authored countless essays and articles, and nine full-length books, including Bohemian Bolsheviks, his latest. [...] the new book is a remarkable addition to his legacy, a collection of 37 essays sorted into six themed sections, which operates as a generous dramatis personae of the literary left, both to its familiar headliners and lesser-known hidden gems.” — Jon Hoel, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, in Pittsburgh Review of Books (20 May 2026).“In summary, this thick volume brings together numerous writings and ideas. And like all of Wald’s scholarship, this volume will provoke serious discussion about the historical contributions that the socialist cultural movements have made to political change.” — Joel Wendland-Liu, Grand Valley State University, in Socialism and Democracy, p. 4 (20 November 2025)."Wald sees today ‘the growth of a new and different type of radical socialist left,’ (p. 484), challenging the disillusioned. This is a message of hope, the takeaway from the rich and dense details and analysis that Wald offer."— Paul Buhle, in CounterPunch (18 August 2026).