The Intellectuals and the Flag

The Intellectuals and the Flag
Author: Todd Gitlin
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2007-05-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0231510357

Download The Intellectuals and the Flag Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

"The tragedy of the left is that, having achieved an unprecedented victory in helping stop an appalling war, it then proceeded to commit suicide." So writes Todd Gitlin about the aftermath of the Vietnam War in this collection of writings that calls upon intellectuals on the left to once again engage American public life and resist the trappings of knee-jerk negativism, intellectual fads, and political orthodoxy. Gitlin argues for a renewed sense of patriotism based on the ideals of sacrifice, tough-minded criticism, and a willingness to look anew at the global role of the United States in the aftermath of 9/11. Merely criticizing and resisting the Bush administration will not do—the left must also imagine and propose an America reformed. 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.

The Intellectuals and Socialism

The Intellectuals and Socialism
Author: Friedrich a Hayek
Publisher:
Total Pages: 24
Release: 2013-10
Genre:
ISBN: 9781258977924

Download The Intellectuals and Socialism Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

This is a new release of the original 1949 edition.

Shame and Glory of the Intellectuals

Shame and Glory of the Intellectuals
Author: Peter Viereck
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1351491024

Download Shame and Glory of the Intellectuals Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

In this classic volume, written at the height of the Cold War, with a new preface of 2006, Peter Viereck, one of the foremost intellectual spokesmen of modern conservatism, examines the differing responses of American and European intellectuals to the twin threats of Nazism and Soviet communism. In so doing, he seeks to formulate a humanistic conservatism with which to counter the danger of totalitarian thought in the areas of politics, ethics, and art.The glory of the intellectuals was the firm moral stance they took against Nazism at a time when appeasement was the preferred path of many politicians; their shame lay in their failure to recognize the brutality of Stalinism to the extent of becoming apologists for or accomplices of its tyranny. In Viereck's view, this failure is rooted in an abandonment of humane values that he sees as a legacy of nineteenth-century romanticism and certain strands of modernist thought and aesthetics.Among his targets are literary obscurantism as personified by Ezra Pound, the academicization of literary culture, the rigidity of adversarial avant-gardism, and the failure of many writers and cultural institutions to conserve the very heritage their political freedom and security depend on. Viereck represents their attitude in a series of satirical dialogues with Gaylord Babbitt, son of Sinclair Lewis' embodiment of conservative philistinism. Babbitt Junior is as unreflective as his father, but the objects of his credulity are the received ideas of liberal progressivism and avant-garde mandarinism. Ultimately, Viereck's critique stands as a timely rebuke to the extremism of both left and right.

The Decline of the Intellectual

The Decline of the Intellectual
Author: Thomas Molnar
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2017-07-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351483994

Download The Decline of the Intellectual Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

In perhaps his most famous book, The Decline of the Intellectual, Thomas Molnar launches into a fundamental critique of the intellectual class. He sees it as a group that had lost its way, collapsing a sense of vision into political activism, social engineering, and culture manipulation, and abandoning the writing, philosophizing, and scholarship that had occupied their predecessors. Universities began to produce factory-like, faceless citizens, as the job market became the arbiter of education and culture. Today's professors are recruited from this group of job seekers, and hence, have a shared indifference toward learning.Molnar likens present-day intellectuals to the earlier Marxists who elaborated their Utopian model in the Communist party. The campus intellectuals' objective is to transform the university into a replica and a laboratory of the ideal society. Colleges and universities thus become sources of propaganda of various political, financial, cultural, and ideological trends, not only among students, but professors as well. The thirty years separating editions have done nothing to weaken such a critical appraisal.In his new introduction, Molnar writes that the decline of intellectuals has extended outside of the campus to the arts, the public discourse, and the robotization caused by technology. On the initial publication of this work, Frank S. Meyer wrote in Modern Age, Thomas Molnar's book is not only true; it is intellectually exciting and it will remain a necessary handbook for anyone interested in the decisive problem of the 20th century. The Decline of the Intellectual is essential reading for sociologists, political scientists, educators, and university officials. It is the basis of present-day critiques of the academic world.

Race, Culture, and the Intellectuals, 1940–1970

Race, Culture, and the Intellectuals, 1940–1970
Author: Richard H. King
Publisher: Woodrow Wilson Center Press
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2004-08-17
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780801880667

Download Race, Culture, and the Intellectuals, 1940–1970 Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

To study this transition from universalism to cultural particularism, Richard King focuses on the arguments of major thinkers, movements, and traditions of thought, attempting to construct a map of the ideological positions that were staked out and an intellectual history of this transition.

Political Pilgrims

Political Pilgrims
Author: Paul Hollander
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 627
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351498797

Download Political Pilgrims Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Why did so many distinguished Western Intellectuals from G.B. Shaw to J.P. Sartre, and. closer to home, from Edmund Wilson to Susan Sontag admire various communist systems, often in their most repressive historical phases? How could Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China, or Castro's Cuba appear at one time as both successful modernizing societies and the fulfillments of the boldest dreams of social justice? Why, at the same time, had these intellectuals so mercilessly judged and rejected their own Western, liberal cultures? What Impulses and beliefs prompted them to seek the realization of their ideals in distant, poorly known lands? How do their journeys fit into long-standing Western traditions of looking for new meaning In the non-Western world?These are some of the questions Paul Hollander sought to answer In his massive study that covers much of our century. His success is attested by the fact that the phrase "political pilgrim" has become a part of intellectual discourse. Even in the post-communist era the questions raised by this book remain relevant as many Western, and especially American intellectuals seek to come to terms with a world which offers few models of secular fulfillment and has tarnished the reputation of political Utopias. His new and lengthy introduction updates the pilgrimages and examines current attempts to find substitutes for the emotional and political energy that used to be invested in them.

Western Intellectuals and the Soviet Union, 1920-40

Western Intellectuals and the Soviet Union, 1920-40
Author: Ludmila Stern
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2006-10-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1134238673

Download Western Intellectuals and the Soviet Union, 1920-40 Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Despite the appalling record of the Soviet Union on human rights questions, many western intellectuals with otherwise impeccable liberal credentials were strong supporters the Soviet Union in the interwar period. This book explores how this seemingly impossible situation came about. Focusing in particular on the work of various official and semi-official bodies, including Comintern, the International Association of Revolutionary Writers, the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, and the Foreign Commission of the Soviet Writers' Union, this book shows how cultural propaganda was always a high priority for the Soviet Union, and how successful this cultural propaganda was in seducing so many Western thinkers.

The New York Intellectuals Reader

The New York Intellectuals Reader
Author: Neil Jumonville
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 458
Release: 2007
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0415952654

Download The New York Intellectuals Reader Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

In the early 1930's in a small alcove at City College in New York a group of young, passionate, and politically radical students argued for hours about the finer points of Marxist doctrine, the true nature of socialism, and whether or not Stalin or Trotsky was the true heir to Lenin. These young intellectuals, including Alfred Kazin, Mary McCarthy, Hannah Arendt and Lionel Trilling among others, went on to write for and found some of the most well known political and literary journals of the 20th century. The New York Intellectuals Reader presents selections from this vibrant group of political thinkers and writers, committed to addressing the most important political, social, and cultural questions of the day.

The Intellectual in Modern Chinese History

The Intellectual in Modern Chinese History
Author: Timothy Cheek
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 395
Release: 2016-01-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1316351858

Download The Intellectual in Modern Chinese History Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

This vivid narrative history of Chinese intellectuals and public life provides a guide to making sense of China today. Timothy Cheek presents a map and a method for understanding the intellectual in the long twentieth century, from China's defeat in the Sino-Japanese war in 1895 to the 'Prosperous China' since the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Cheek surveys the changing terrain of intellectual life over this transformative century in Chinese history to enable readers to understand a particular figure, idea or debate. The map provides coordinates to track different times, different social worlds and key concepts. The historical method focuses on context and communities during six periods to make sense of ideas, institutions and individual thinkers across the century. Together they provide a memorable account of the scenes and protagonists, and arguments and ideas, of intellectuals and public life in modern China.

Capture the Flag

Capture the Flag
Author: Arnaldo Testi
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2010-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0814783228

Download Capture the Flag Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Now an acclaimed European professor of American history brings a fresh perspective to the American flag, exploring its political, social, and cultural significance across the broad swath of its history. Mining a rich vein of materials from history, literature, music, and popular culture, Arnaldo Testi analyzes the symbolic importance of the flag to the national consciousness of this "nation of immigrants" and sees in it the very contradictions that make up our history: secularism and sacredness, freedom and empire, inclusiveness and aggressive self-confidence.