Bellow, Adam 1957-

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BELLOW, Adam 1957-

PERSONAL:

Born 1957; son of Saul (an author) and Alexandra Bellow. Education: Princeton University, B.A., (Renaissance studies), 1980; completed postgraduate study at the University of Chicago.

ADDRESSES:

Home—64 Grand St., New York, NY 10013.

CAREER:

Doubleday Press, New York, NY, editor-at-large, 1997—. Editorial director, Free Press.

WRITINGS:

In Praise of Nepotism: A Natural History, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS:

Adam Bellow began life as the son of the famous author Saul Bellow and his second wife Alexandra. As David Remnick chronicles in a January, 1995, interview in the New Yorker, after earning his bachelor's degree from Princeton University in 1980 and several career changes, Bellow entered the Committee on Social Thought's Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago at his father's suggestion. He later became the editorial director at the Free Press, a conservative publishing house, where he edited the books The Real Anita Hill and The Bell Curve, among many others.

Adam Bellow enjoyed a successful career as the publisher of some of the most famous and controversial texts of his day at the Free Press. However, in his first major work, In Praise of Nepotism: A Natural History, he raises the issue of how much of this success was the result of his famous father: "My employers … undoubtedly assumed not only that I had the 'right stuff' to be an editor by virtue of my parentage, but that my name and social background would be useful in my publishing career." "Nor is it likely," he continued, "that I could have written and published this book without the added value that my name brings to the project."

Bellow's assertion that nepotism has played a major role in his life is a positive one. His book makes the case that nepotism is a concept deeply rooted in American history and culture, and often plays a positive role in society. He questioned the suspicion that nepotism engenders in American culture, and the hypocrisy with which we view it as a bad practice but utilize it to our benefit. In the first chapter of his book, which was published as an article in the Atlantic Monthly, Bellow envisions a "new nepotism" that combines "the privileges of birth with the iron rule of merit in a way that is much less offensive to democratic sensibilities."

Critical response to Bellow's book was varied. Scott McLemee, writing in Newsday, observed that "the image of a silver spoon on the cover of In Praise of Nepotism is an awfully cute touch, but to someone born without one, it looks like a weapon." New Statesman reviewer Richard Reeves commented, "It is tempting to dismiss Bellow Jr's arguments as a load of self-serving tosh. And given that he writes in a nation where the late Senator Strom Thurmond prevailed upon George W. Bush to appoint his twenty-eight-year-old son as U.S. attorney for South Carolina, this is a temptation to which we should succumb." Other reviewers responded positively to the book's assertions. Steve Sailer, in National Interest, argued that Americans' insistence on achievement through merit alone put the nation at a disadvantage in foreign affairs. "Americans tend to be willfully blind to the crucial subject of nepotism," he pointed out. "We disapprove of it, so we feel we ought not to think about it—a dangerous illusion as we pursue a more activist foreign policy that brings us in touch with cultures that approach the topic quite differently." In the National Review, Paul Johnson questioned, "And why should not hereditary skills be rewarded? All the public really demands is fairness. I doubt whether that can be enforced by regulators and law."

A few reviewers felt that the book's premise was undermined by Bellow's redefinition of the term "nepotism." Writing in New Criterion, Anthony Daniels remarked that Bellow "does not really define nepotism very clearly, so that favoritism and cronyism come to be equated with it. But they are surely rather different phenomena." A contributor to Publishers Weekly also noted that "at times he casts such a wide net that he risks blurring nepotism with the entirety of human history," but felt that Bellow's "analysis of the flexibility and complexity of nepotism's forms is utterly enthralling and stimulating."

Nathan Glazer in a review for Commentary addressed the criticism, both positive and negative, that surrounded Bellow's first work: "This is a book whose provenance may well overshadow any serious discussion of its merits." He concluded that "Bellow deserves credit for having placed the issue on the table, and I hope it will not be held against him that he has a personal interest in the matter."