Howe was born as Irving Horenstein in The Bronx, New York, as a son of immigrants from Bukovina who ran a small grocery store that went out of business during the Great Depression. He never publicly explained his name change from "Horenstein" to "Howe."
Like many New York Intellectuals, Howe attended City College (CCNY) and graduated in 1940, alongside Daniel Bell and Irving Kristol. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II. Upon his return, he began writing literary and cultural criticism for the influential Partisan Review and became a frequent essayist for Commentary, Politics, The Nation, The New Republic, and The New York Review of Books. In 1954, Howe helped found the intellectual quarterly Dissent, which he edited until his death in 1993. In the 1950s Howe taught English and Yiddish literature at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA. He used the Howe and Greenberg Treasury of Yiddish Stories as the text for a course on the Yiddish story at a time when few were spreading knowledge or appreciation of these works in American colleges and universities.
Since his CCNY days, Howe was committed to left-wing politics. He was a member of the Young People's Socialist League and then Max Shachtman's Workers Party. He left this movement in the early 1950s. As the request of his friend Michael Harrington, he helped co-found the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee in the early 1970s. DSOC merged into the Democratic Socialists of America in 1982, with Howe as a vice-chair. He was a vociferous opponent of both Soviet totalitarianism and McCarthyism, called into question standard Marxist doctrine, and came into conflict with the New Left after criticizing their unmitigated radicalism. Later in life, his politics gravitated toward more pragmatic democratic socialism and foreign policy, a position still represented in the idiosyncratic political and social arguments of Dissent.
Known for literary criticism as well social and political activism, Howe wrote studies on Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, politics and the novel, and a history of Eastern European Jews in America entitled World of Our Fathers which won a National Book Award. He also edited and translated many Yiddish stories, and commissioned the first English translation of Isaac Bashevis Singer for the Partisan Review. He also wrote A Margin of Hope, his autobiography, and Socialism and America.
Howe had two children, Nina and the late Nicholas, with his second wife, Thalia Phillies. Howe also had two grandchildren, Anastasia and Nicholas.
A biography of Howe, entitled Irving Howe: A Life of Passionate Dissent, was published by Gerald Sorin.
Shoptalk : an instructor's manual for Classics of modern fiction : eight short novels editor, New York : Harcourt, Brace & World , 1968.
Beyond the new left, New York, McCall Pub. Co., 1970. ISBN 0841500215
Decline of the new, New York, Harcourt, Brace & World, 1970
The critical point, on literature and culture, New York, Horizon Press, 1973
World of our fathers; the journey of the East European Jews to America and the life they found and made , New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976
New perspectives: the diaspora and Israel, with Matityahu Peled New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976
Leon Trotsky, New York : Viking Press, 1978
Celebrations and attacks : thirty years of literary and cultural commentary, New York : Horizon Press, 1979. ISBN 0818011769
The threat of conservatism with Gus Tyler and Peter Steinfels, New York, N.Y. : Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas, 1980.
The making of a critic, Bennington, Vt. : Bennington College, 1982. Ben Belitt lectureship series, #5.
A Margin of Hope: An intellectual Autobiography, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982. ISBN 0-15-157138-4.
Socialism and America, San Diego : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.
The American newness: culture and politics in the age of Emerson, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1986.
American Jews and liberalism with Michael Walzer, Leonard Fein and Mitchell Cohen, New York, N.Y. : Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas, 1986.
The return of terrorism, Bronx, N.Y.: Lehman College of the City University of New York, 1989. Herbert H. Lehman memorial lecture Lehman College publications, #22.
Selected writings, 1950-1990 San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990.
A critic's notebook edited and introduced by Nicholas Howe, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994.
The end of Jewish secularism, New York: Hunter College of the City University of New York, 1995. Occasional papers in Jewish history and thought, #1.
Introductions, translations, etc.
The essence of Judaism, by Leo Baeck, translated by Howe and Victor Grubwieser, New York: Schocken Books 1948.
A treasury of Yiddish stories, editor with Eliezer Greenberg New York, Viking Press, 1954.
Modern literary criticism: an anthology, editor, Boston, Beacon Press, 1958.
New Grub Street by George Gissing; edited and introduced by Irving Howe, Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1962.
The basic writings of Trotsky edited and introduced by Irving Howe, New York, Random House, 1963.
Orwell's Nineteen eighty-four: text, sources, criticism editor, New York : Harcourt, Brace and World, 1963.
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser; afterword by Irving Howe, New York : Signet Classic, 1964.
Jude the obscure by Thomas Hardy; edited with an introduction by Irving Howe, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965.
The radical papers editor, New York : Doubleday, 1966.
Selected writings: stories, poems and essays. by Thomas Hardy; edited with an introduction by Irving Howe, Greenwich, Conn., Fawcett Publications, 1966.
Selected short stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer edited with an introduction by Irving Howe, New York, Modern Library, 1966.
The radical imagination; an anthology from Dissent Magazine editor, New York : New American Library, 1967.
A Dissenter's guide to foreign policy editor, New York : Praeger, 1968.
Classics of modern fiction; eight short novels editor, New York : Harcourt, Brace & World , 1968.
A treasury of Yiddish poetry, editor with Eliezer Greenberg New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969.
Essential works of socialism editor, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970.
The literature of America; nineteenth century editor, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1970.
Israel, the Arabs, and the Middle East editor with Carl Gershman, New York, Quadrangle Books, 1970.
Voices from the Yiddish: essays, memoirs, diaries, editor with Eliezer Greenberg Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1972.
The seventies: problems and proposals, editor with Michael Harrington New York, Harper & Row, 1972.
The world of the blue-collar worker editor, New York, Quadrangle Books, 1972.
Yiddish stories, old and new, editor with Eliezer Greenberg New York, Holiday House 1974
The new conservatives: a critique from the left editor, New York, Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co., 1974.
Herzog by Saul Bellow text and criticism edited by Irving Howe, New York, QViking Press, 1976.
Jewish-American stories, editor, New York : New American Library, 1977.
Ashes out of hope: fiction by Soviet-Yiddish writers, editor with Eliezer Greenberg New York : Schocken Books, 1977.
Literature as experience: an anthology editor with John Hollander and David Bromwich, New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979.
The best of Sholem Aleichem edited by Irving Howe and Ruth Wisse, Washington: New Republic Book, 1979.
Twenty-five years of Dissent: an American tradition compiled and with an introd. by Irving Howe, New York : Methuen, 1979.
How we lived: a documentary history of immigrant Jews in America, 1880-1930 editor with Kenneth Libo, New York : R. Marek, 1979.
The portable Kipling editor, New York, Viking Press, 1982
Beyond the welfare state editor, New York : Schocken Books, 1982.
Short shorts: an anthology of the shortest stories edited by Irving Howe and Ilana Wiener Howe with an introduction by Irving Howe, Boston, Mass: D.R. Godine, 1982
1984 revisited: totalitarianism in our century editor, New York : Harper & Row, 1983.
Alternatives, proposals for America from the democratic left editor, New York : Pantheon Books, 1984.
We lived there, too: in their own words and pictures...pioneer Jews and the westward movement of America, 1630-1930 editor with Kenneth Libo, New York : St. Martin's/Marek, 1984.
The Penguin book of modern Yiddish verse edited by Irving Howe, Ruth Wisse and Chone Shmeruk New York, Viking Press, 1987
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, introduction New York: Bantam, 1990.
The castle by Franz Kafka, introduction London : David Campbell Publishers, 1992.
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens, introduction London : David Campbell Publishers, 1992.
