Early Years
A child of poor Russian-Jewish immigrants, Magdoff grew up in the Bronx. In 1929, at age 15, Magdoff first started reading Karl Marx when he picked up a copy of The Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy in a used-book store. "It blew my mind," recalled Magdoff in 2003. "His view of history was a revelation....that got me started reading about economics. We were going into the Depression then and I wanted to figure out what it all meant." 1 His interest in Marx led him to embrace socialism.
Magdoff studied mathematics and physics from 1930 to 1933 at the City College of New York taking engineering, math and physics courses; he was active in the Social Problems Club with many schoolmates who later joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a Comintern organization that fought in the Spanish Civil War, many also joined the US Armed Forces. Magdoff attended New York University after 1933, where he studied economics and statistics, receiving a B.Sc in Economics in 1935. He was suspended and later expelled from City College for activities related to editing Frontiers (a radical student magazine not sanctioned by the school), including participation in a mock trial of the school's President and its Director.
Read more about this topic: Harry Magdoff
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“If you are willing to inconvenience yourself in the name of discipline, the battle is half over. Leave Grandmas early if the children are acting impossible. Depart the ballpark in the sixth inning if youve warned the kids and their behavior is still poor. If we do something like this once, our kids will remember it for a long time.”
—Fred G. Gosman (20th century)
“So many things I had thought forgotten
Return to my mind with stranger pain:
Like letters that arrive addressed to someone
Who left the house so many years ago.”
—Philip Larkin (19221986)