On the occasion of his 80th birthday an interview with Mr. Silber was published giving details on his role in the progressive folk music circles of the 40s, 50s and 60s as well as his appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s.

[6] Factional disagreements led to a split within the Guardian staff, and Silber left the newspaper in 1979, moving to California to join the leadership of a current within US Marxism known as the "rectification movement" and he affiliated with the Line of March.

Among Silber's most important political writing is Socialism; What Went Wrong, an examination of the theoretical and practical events in the USSR leading up to its collapse.

Silber's most recent book, Press Box Red, tells the story of sports editor Lester Rodney, whose decade-long campaign in the pages of the Daily Worker helped pave the way for the racial integration of major league baseball.

In the December 24, 2007 issue of Newsweek magazine Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion fame was asked to name his five most important books.

His #2 choice (after the Acts of the Apostles) is The Folksinger's Wordbook by Irwin Silber, a huge collection of "hymns, blues, murder ballads, miner's laments-the whole culture."

[8]Dylan did not like being told how to perform or how to write, and he replied by telling his manager Albert Grossman that his songs were no longer available for publication in Sing Out!.