A Collection That "Represents The Heart of Menand's Work . . . And Demonstrates His Status As His Generation's Premier Critical Talent" (Los Angeles Times)
An engrossing and impossibly wide-ranging project . . . In The Free World, every seat is a good one." —Carlos Lozada, The Washington Post "The Free World sparkles. Fully original, beautifully written . . . One hopes Menand has a sequel in mind. The bar is set very high." —David Oshinsky, The New York Times Book Review | Editors' Choice One of The New York Times's 100 best books of 2021 | One of The Washington Post's 50 best nonfiction books of 2021 | A Mother Jones best book of 2021 In his follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Metaphysical Club, Louis Menand offers a new intellectual and cultural history of the postwar years The Cold War was not just a contest of power. It was also about ideas, in the broadest sense—economic and political, artistic and personal. In The Free World, the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize–winning scholar and critic Louis Menand tells the story of American culture in the pivotal years from the end of World War II to Vietnam and shows how changing economic, technological, and social forces put their mark on creations of the mind. How did elitism and an anti-totalitarian skepticism of passion and ideology give way to a new sensibility defined by freewheeling experimentation and loving the Beatles? How was the ideal of “freedom” applied to causes that ranged from anti-communism and civil rights to radical acts of self-creation via art and even crime? With the wit and insight familiar to readers of The Metaphysical Club and his New Yorker essays, Menand takes us inside Hannah Arendt’s Manhattan, the Paris of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Merce Cunningham and John Cage’s residencies at North Carolina’s Black Mountain College, and the Memphis studio where Sam Phillips and Elvis Presley created a new music for the American teenager. He examines the post war vogue for French existentialism, structuralism and post-structuralism, the rise of abstract expressionism and pop art, Allen Ginsberg’s friendship with Lionel Trilling, James Baldwin’s transformation into a Civil Right spokesman, Susan Sontag’s challenges to the New York Intellectuals, the defeat of obscenity laws, and the rise of the New Hollywood. Stressing the rich flow of ideas across the Atlantic, he also shows how Europeans played a vital role in promoting and influencing American art and entertainment. By the end of the Vietnam era, the American government had lost the moral prestige it enjoyed at the end of the Second World War, but America’s once-despised culture had become respected and adored. With unprecedented verve and range, this book explains how that happened.
Sparking a long-overdue debate about the future of American education, "The Marketplace of Ideas" examines traditional university institutions, assessing what is worth saving and what is not
Examines the development of an American philosophy between the end of the Civil War and 1919 by exploring the lives of four key metaphysical thinkers: Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, and John Dewey.
Shows how T S Eliot's early views on literary value and authenticity - and his later repudiation of those views - reflect the profound changes regarding the understanding of literature and its significance that occurred in the early part of the twentieth century.
The Metaphysical Club was a group that met in Massachusetts, in 1872. The group believed that ideas are not things out there waiting to be discovered but are tools people invent to make their way in the world. This book is the story of that idea.
Men and Nations is the fruit of one man's extended effort to solve the philosophical problems that underlie the practical dilemmas of human society. This undertaking began when, as an adviser in the U.S. State Department, Mr. Halle found himself groping for the deeper explanation of political problems that could not be understood within the limits of the terms in which they presented themselves, The philosophical system that resulted is proposed here as a basis for the understanding and teaching of politics. It is, however, a complete philosophy of life, not limited to politics. Men and Nations represents an effort to resume progress in the great tradition of political philosophy, to present a foundation for the continued progress of our societies. Originally published in 1962. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
This volume contains Robert Louis Stevenson's "Familiar Studies of Men and Books", being a fascinating exploration of the life and work of a number of seminal authors from across the globe. It contains a wealth of interesting historical and biographical information, and is highly recommended for those with a keen interest in the written word. The chapters of this volume include: "Victor Hugo's Romances", "Some Aspects of Robert Burns", "Walt Whitman", "Henry David Thoreau: His Characters and Opinions", "Yoshida-Tyorajiro", "Francois Villon, Student, Poet, and House-breaker", etcetera. Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (1850 - 1894) was a famous Scottish essayist, novelist, poet, and travel writer. Some of his best known works include "Treasure Island" and "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde". Many vintage texts such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this book now, in an affordable, high-quality, modern edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned biography of the author.
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