Peter Collier and David Horowitz

Collier headshot
Born in Hollywood, California, Peter Collier (1939-2019) grew up in Burbank and earned a BA in English in 1961 and a MA in 1963 from UC Berkeley. He was a civil rights activist in the South in 1964 before returning to UC Berkeley to teach freshman English from 1964-69 and again as a Visiting Writer from 1977-81. He also taught at UC Santa Cruz and at Miles College in Birmingham, Alabama. In 1966 he became an editor at radical leftist Ramparts magazine where David Horowitz also worked. Becoming disillusioned with the New Left when it ignored Communist atrocities in Southeast Asia, both began a political transition away from the Left which turned them into “second thoughters” (their own terms).

Among Collier’s books are The Kennedys: An American Drama, a #1 New York Times bestseller co-authored with David Horowitz as were The Roosevelts: An American Saga, The Fords: an American Epic and The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty. Collier was the founding editor of conservative Encounter Books in San Francisco and held that position from 1998 until he resigned in 2005 when he became Vice President of Programs at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Collier’s other books are Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty, Political Woman: The Big Little Life of Jeane Kirkpatrick and the young adult book, Choosing Courage: Inspiring Stories of What It Means to Be a Hero published in collaboration with the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. His final work, the novel Things in Glocca Morra, appeared in 2021.


Horowitz headshot
Born in 1939 in Queens, New York, David Horowitz received a BA in English from Columbia University in 1959 and a MA in English literature from UC Berkeley. During the mid 1960s, he worked in London for the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, identifying as a Marxist intellectual. In 1968, he returned to northern California where he became co-editor of the magazine Ramparts. In the early 1970s, Horowitz developed a close friendship with the founder of the Black Panther Party and helped the Panthers raise money for, and run a school for poor children in Oakland.

In 1985, Horowitz and Collier published “Lefties for Reagan” (later retitled “Goodbye to All That”) in The Washington Post Magazine to explain their change of views and decision to vote for a second term for Republican President Ronald Reagan. In 1998 Horowitz and Collier founded the David Horowitz Freedom Center. In the early 2000s, Horowitz concentrated on issues of academic freedom, attempting to protect conservative viewpoints on college campuses. Horowitz opposes illegal immigration, gun control, and Islam. Besides those written with Peter Collier, his books include From Yalta to Vietnam: American Foreign Policy in the Cold War, Isaac Deutscher: The Man and His Work, The Politics of Bad Faith: The Radical Assault on America’s Future and the memoir Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey.


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