Emily Hull

My research studied the intellectual career of Irving Kristol (1920-2009), the former Trotskyist and so called ‘Godfather’ of neo-conservatism. Thus far, Kristol has principally received historiographical notice in scholarship concerning the New York intellectuals and neoconservatives. However, despite many cameo appearances in these works, Kristol lacks full biographical attention, which my PhD has remedied.

The project fused intellectual history and biography to investigate four key issues: the increased engagement of intellectuals with the American public in the 1930s and 1940s; the conflict between the Old and New Left in the 1950s and 1960s; the tensions between the intellectual right and left in the 1970s and 1980s; and the role of public intellectuals during and after the Cold War. Additionally, the project asks what Kristol’s later works can tell us about the nature of American capitalism.