Description
Book SynopsisHow do American intellectuals try to achieve their political and social goals? By what means do they articulate their hopes for change? John McGowan seeks to identify the goals and strategies of contemporary humanistic intellectuals who strive to shape the politics and culture of their time. In a lively mix of personal reflection and shrewd analysis, McGowan visits the sites of intellectual activity (scholarly publications, professional conferences, the classroom, and the university) and considers the hazards of working within such institutional contexts to effect change outside the academy.
Democracy''s Children considers the historical trajectory that produced current intellectual practices. McGowan links the growing prestige of culture since 1800 to the growth of democracy and the obsession with modernity and explores how intellectuals became both custodians and creators of culture. Caught between fears of culture''s irrelevance and dreams of its omnipotence, intell
Trade Review
Democracy’s Children is a meditation on how intellectuals might try to achieve their political and social goals in the early twenty-first century.
-- William G. Tierney * Academe *
Democracy’s Children is one of the more distinguished recent examples of that curious academic genre, the book of linked essays. It is also one of the most consistently provocative and contrarian academic books I have yet come across.
-- Susan Read Baker * South Atlantic Review *
