I can't believe I'm posting this reference instead of Michael, but:
http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/sept01silber.htm
Commies A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left By Ronald Radosh Encounter Books, San Francisco, 2001 Review by Irwin Silber [...]
And a very fine review it is.
and also:
http://www.furious.com/Perfect/irwinsilber.html Q: A few years after your open letter to Bob Dylan, you wrote a piece for the Guardian which was a lot more accepting of his new directions. What was changing your view?
IS: My open letter was written at a moment when I was really disappointed, as I said before. I think what I wrote, I'd stand by, but if I had to do it all over again I don't think I would write it in the same tone and in the same way. Writing it reflected a certain naivete on my part, that, well, maybe his rush in this direction could be checked or modified, whatever it was. But once what Dylan was doing became a fait accompli, it was clear that this wasn't in the cards. And so three years later, I was ready to deal with the Bob Dylan that existed, and not the Bob Dylan that I remembered from those first years. I don't recall the article particularly, but I know generally, when I wrote about Dylan or made reference to him in anything that I wrote, I don't think I did that much, it was more an attempt to appreciate what he was doing and evaluating that in its own right.
uating that in its own right.