author
Max Eastman
1883–1969
A restless public thinker, he moved from radical politics to fierce anti-communism without losing his appetite for argument. His writing spans poetry, criticism, memoir, and political debate, making him a vivid guide to some of the 20th century’s biggest intellectual battles.
1 Audiobook
Colors of Life: Poems and Songs and Sonnets
by Max Eastman
About the author
Born in Canandaigua, New York, Max Eastman was an American writer, poet, editor, and political activist whose long career crossed literature, journalism, and public debate. He studied at Williams College and Columbia, and became widely known in New York’s radical circles in the early 1900s.
He is especially remembered for editing The Masses and later The Liberator, two influential magazines tied to modernist culture and left-wing politics. He supported causes including socialism and women’s suffrage, and he was also known for bringing Russian revolutionary writing to English-language readers through his translations and commentary.
Eastman’s views changed sharply over time, and in later life he became a prominent critic of socialism and Soviet communism. That political journey, along with his broad range as a poet, essayist, and memoirist, gives his work an unusual energy: even when readers disagree with him, he rarely feels dull.