Description
Book SynopsisThis collection brings together Daniel Bell''s best work in essay form. It deals with a variety of topics: technology and culture, religion and personal identity, intellectuals and their societies, and the uses and abuses of doctrines of social class. The Winding Passage demonstrates the author''s continuing concern with the salient issues of our times, while its inspiration draws upon an older, humanistic sociological tradition.
In a central essay on intellectuals, Bell examines the term new class and calls it a muddle. Though the idea of class has been relevant to Western industrial society for the past two hundred years, the concept is less useful for examining Communist states, the Third World, and even the emerging postindustrial sectors of the West. Bell seeks to establish the idea of situs, the competitive conflict of functional groups for shares in the state budgetary process.
A more personal note is struck in the final section of the b
Table of Contents
Foreword, Preface, Part I - Techne and Themis, Part II - Prophets of Utopia, Part III - The Intellectuals and The New Class, Part IV - Directions of Social Change, Part V - Culture and Beliefs, Acknowledgements, Index