The Intellectuals and the Flag / Edition 1 available in Paperback
- ISBN-10:
- 0231124937
- ISBN-13:
- 9780231124935
- Pub. Date:
- 05/15/2007
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- ISBN-10:
- 0231124937
- ISBN-13:
- 9780231124935
- Pub. Date:
- 05/15/2007
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
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Overview
Where then can the left turn? Gitlin celebrates the work of three prominent postwar intellectuals: David Riesman, C. Wright Mills, and Irving Howe. Their ambitious, assertive, and clearly written works serve as models for an intellectual engagement that forcefully addresses social issues and remains affirmative and comprehensive. Sharing many of the qualities of these thinkers' works, Todd Gitlin's blunt, frank analysis of the current state of the left and his willingness to challenge orthodoxies pave the way for a revival in leftist thought and a new liberal patriotism.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780231124935 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Columbia University Press |
Publication date: | 05/15/2007 |
Edition description: | New Edition |
Pages: | 192 |
Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d) |
Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Liberal patriots would refuse to be satisfied with knee-jerk answers but would join the hard questions as members of a society do -- members who criticize on behalf of a community of mutual aid, not marginal scoffers who have painted themselves into a corner. Liberal patriots would not be satisfied to reply to consensus truculence with rejectionist truculence. They would not take pride in their marginality. They would take it as their obligation to illuminate a transformed world.
Table of Contents
Introduction: From Great Refusal to Political RetreatI. Three Exemplary Intellectuals
1. David Riesman's Lonely Crowd
2. C. Wright Mills, Free Radical
3. Irving Howe's Partition
II. Two Traps and Three Values
4. The Postmodernist Mood
5. The Antipolitical Populism of Cultural Studies
6. The Values of Media, Citizenship, and Higher Education
III. The Intellectuals and the Flag
Acknowledgments
Index
What People are Saying About This
Todd Gitlin has joined Irving Howe, Michael Walzer, Michael Harrington, and Christopher Lasch in the ranks of our nation's most brilliant, important, and perceptive social critics. The Intellectuals and the Flag will confirm that reputation. Gitlin is fearless: he challenges the status quo and his own side. He insists that the Left has a moral obligation to stop marginalizing itself and to change the country by appealing to our traditions of democracy, equality and community. We need critics who are patriots and patriots who are critics. Gitlin shows that patriotism need not be, and should not be, the last refuge of scoundrels.
Of all the voices to be heard since 9/11, Todd Gitlin's is among the most welcome. While otherson left and righthave lost their heads, Gitlin has used the occasion to rethink and reassert where he stands on questions of power, political authority, civic engagement, patriotism, and much else. This is a bracing and admirable book.
Todd Gitlin has joined Irving Howe, Michael Walzer, Michael Harrington, and Christopher Lasch in the ranks of our nation's most brilliant, important, and perceptive social critics. The Intellectuals and the Flag will confirm that reputation. Gitlin is fearless: he challenges the status quo and his own side. He insists that the Left has a moral obligation to stop marginalizing itself and to change the country by appealing to our traditions of democracy, equality and community. We need critics who are patriotsand patriots who are critics. Gitlin shows that patriotism need not be, and should not be, the last refuge of scoundrels.
How might one reconcile patriotism with dissent? Love of country with the critical spirit? Grounded commitment with the Great Refusal? Have the events of September 11 changed the nature of our response? These are just some of the topical themes that Todd Gitlin addresses in his luminous new study, The Intellectuals and the Flag. Here is Gitlin at his best: lucid, insightful, thought-provoking, and broad-minded. A latter-day Tom Paine, Gitlin is quite simply the most informed voice writing in America today about the volatile interface between politics and culture.