Why do ruling classes fear history?, and other questions
By: Harvey J. Kaye ; with a foreword by Daniel Singer.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 270
Subjects: History -- Study and teaching -- United States.; Education -- Political aspects -- United States.; Democracy -- United States.; Radicalism -- United States.; History, Modern -- 20th century -- Philosophy.; United States -- Intellectual life -- 20th century.
Description: In "Why Do Ruling Classes Fear History?" and Other Questions, Harvey Kaye shows how our present-day political and economic elites stand in a long line of governing classes that have been eager to declare an end to the making of history.

Invoking the hard-fought-for accomplishments of America's past and the persistent possibilities of its future, he calls upon his fellow citizens, especially intellectuals of the Left, to redeem the "prophetic memory" of American experience and renew the struggle for liberty, equality, and democracy. Through essays that range in tone and content from the rhetorical power of a public address to the intimacy of a personal memoir, Harvey Kaye looks at the value of knowledge and the power of history to liberate.

Not content to accept the notion that history is at an end and that individuals are powerless to effect change, Kaye makes an impassioned plea to understand the ongoing, circuitous route of history and its ability to engender social action at a time when society seems to have lost tract of the true lessons that history can teach.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [251]-266) and index.