David Horowitz, the radical leftist-turned-conservative activist and author, died Tuesday at the age of 86.
The cause of death was cancer. Horowitz is survived by his fourth wife and three of his four children. His daughter Sarah Rose predeceased him in 2008. His son Ben is the co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, a prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm.
Horowitz’s influence was perhaps best summarized by conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat in a recent interview with venture capitalist Marc Andreessen:
[E]veryone who is a young person on the political right in the 1990s and early 2000s, as I was, has had at least one encounter with David Horowitz of one kind or another. Sixties radicalism definitely lived on in his postradical phase, I think it’s fair to say.
While I never met Horowitz, I did have the opportunity to read his…
