Hilton Kramer, the most courageous and influential art critic in America, is also the founder and co-editor of The New Criterion. This comprehensive book collects a sizable selection of his early essays and reviews, which constituted his first complete statement about art and the art world. The essays and reviews gathered here were written in response to particular occasions and for specific deadlines in the conviction that a start in the arduous task of critical revaluation needed to be made because our experience compelled it."