The entire artifact — book and CD together —becomes a multimedia portrait of a fascinating man whose family and class allegiances, fierce intelligence and demanding friendship were obviously a challenge and a joy for those around him. Acorn’s reputation as a Marxist curmudgeon was the one I was most familiar with when I picked up this book.

Bertell Ollman is a professor of political science at New York University, and is well known for books like Alienation and Dialectical Investigations, and for well over fifty articles and commentaries on a variety of left-wing subjects. In this book, directed to American university students, Ollman makes a deal with his readers.