The past few years have provided a number of intellectual magazines with anniversaries on which they could survey their roles in contemporary politics and culture. In 1985, in a 20th anniversary issue, The Public Interest reviewed its increasingly skeptical contribution to policy debate, while in a 40th anniversary issue, Commentary asked how well America has met its responsibilities since the Second World War. Both magazines had, starting in the late 1960's, undertaken a neoconservative rethinking of liberalism, the dominant tradition of American intellectuals. Immediately preceding these two magazines, in late 1984 the older and still liberal New Republic and Partisan Review observed their 70th and 50th anniversaries, respectively. Both put out special issues that can be read as responses to the neoconservative challenge. By examining these special issues it is possible both to view the vicissitudes of liberal thought in this century, and to describe its current status.

The New Republic defined itself as liberal from its beginning in 1914. Partisan Review evolved from communism in the early 1930's, through an anti-Stalinism that remained