Mitchell Cohen is coeditor emeritus of Dissent Magazine and professor emeritus of political science at Bernard Baruch College, City University of New York. His books include the award-winning The Politics of Opera: A History from Monteverdi to Mozart (2005) and The Wager of Lucien Goldmann: Tragedy, Dialectics, and a Hidden God (1994). He has written for the New York Times Sunday Book Review, the TLS, Politico, Esprit, and various journals in the United States and Europe.