Company Of Critics - Hardcover

Walzer, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465013317 ISBN 13: 9780465013319

Publisher: Basic Books, 1988

Synopsis

Discusses major twentieth century social critics and their relationship to important social movements, including socialism, civil rights, feminism, and national liberation

About this title

About the Author:

Michael Walzer is Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, and the author of many widely heralded books, including Spheres of Justice, Exodus and Revolution, and The Company of Critics, all available from Basic Books. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

From Publishers Weekly:

In the minds of many, the ideal social critic is a detached hero who, like Albert Camus, breaks loose to view his own society from the outside. The author rejects this image, insisting that only the passionately committed "connected critic" can effectively challenge the prevailing culture. The 11 critics whom Walzer (a social scientist at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study) spotlights in this dense, rewarding study include Martin Buber, a Zionist critical of Jewish nationalism; American WW I pacifist Randolph Bourne; Simone de Beauvoir; French antifascist Julien Benda; and Camusa good man in a bad time, but no hero, in Walzer's estimate. The author views distance as a fatal critical flaw, and he uses aloof sages Herbert Marcuse and Michel Foucault as cases in point. He also considers exiled South African writer Breyten Breytenbach, struggling to deny his marginal status as he thunders against apartheid while sitting in Parisian cafes.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0465013317
• ISBN 13: 9780465013319
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272