Norman Podhoretz’s death in December of 2025 marked the passing of a lion of conservative thought. Much has already been said of his career and achievements by those who knew his oeuvre and life in great detail. In this review, however, I focus on Podhoretz’s book My Love Affair with America (2000) because, in revealing his attachment to, rejection of, and later reunion with America, he teaches us all much-needed lessons in patriotism, wisdom, and gratitude.

Known as one of the founders of neoconservatism, Podhoretz’s career spanned many decades, including 35 years spent as the editor of Commentary magazine. The author of 12 books, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in 2004. He emerged as a literary critic and writer in the 1950s when the New York intellectual scene was in full bloom, a position it would hold for the next few decades. His time among this cohort was colorfully described by Podhoretz in Making It, a somewhat irreverent but authentic account of how the quest for fame drove his energies and those of his intellectual family, who also joined in the struggle to uphold literary standards and counter threats from mass culture.

Later in Breaking Ranks (1979), Podhoretz would detail his exodus from this same crowd, and from the radical liberalism he had led and expounded in the 1960s, recalling the central political and intellectual crises that propelled him to the American right.

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