num_pages: 304
description: From one of the leading critics of leftist orientations comes a study of the thinkers who have most influenced the attitudes of the New Left. Beginning with a ruthless analysis of New Leftism and concluding with a critique of the key strands in its thinking Roger Scruton conducts a reappraisal of such major left-wing thinkers as E. P. Thompson Ronald Dworkin R. D. Laing Jurgen Habermas Gyorgy Lukacs Jean-Paul Sartre Jacques Derrida Slavoj iek Ralph Milliband and Eric Hobsbawm. In addition to assessments of these thinkers' philosophical and political contributions the book contains a biographical and bibliographical section summarizing their careers and most important writings.In Fools Frauds and Firebrands Scruton asks What does the Left look like today and how has it evolved? He charts the transfer of grievances from the working class to women gays and immigrants asks what we can put in the place of radical egalitarianism and what explains the continued dominance of antinomian attitudes in the intellectual world. Can there be any foundation for resistance to the leftist agenda without religious faith?Writing with great clarity Scruton delivers a devastating critique of modern left-wing thinking.
language: English
title: Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left
publisher: Bloomsbury Continuum