Goldman, as historian Perry Link observes, began by studying the adversarial relations between writers and the Party leadership, both of whom assumed that "literature, morality, and politics are closely intertwined -- indeed little more than different aspects of essentially the same thing."
The meaning of "dissent" and the role of intellectuals and the state changed in Goldman's next books as she and her colleagues explored the continuities between 20th century intellectuals and the imperial past.