Popular Front columnist and New Deal propagandist, fearless opponent of McCarthyism and feared scourge of official liars, I. F. Stone (1907-1989)-- magnetic, witty, indefatigable--left a permanent mark on our politics and culture. A college dropout, he was already an influential newsman by the age of twenty-five, enjoying extraordinary access to key figures in Washington and New York. Guttenplan finds the key to Stone's achievements throughout his singular career--not just in the celebrated I. F. Stone's Weekly--lay in the force and passion of his political commitments. Stone's calm and forensic yet devastating reports on American politics and institutions sprang from a radical faith in the long-term prospects for American democracy.

In an era when the old radical questions--about war, the economy, health care, and the right to dissent--are suddenly new again, Guttenplan's lively, provocative book makes clear why so many of Stone's pronouncements have acquired the force of prophecy.