Intellectuals and Public Life
Subtitle: Between Radicalism and Reform
Contributors: Leon Fink (Editor); Stephen T. Leonard (Editor); Donald M. Reid (Editor)
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: April 1996
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 327
ISBN-13: 9780801427947
Subjects: History of ideas, intellectual history; POLITICS & GOVERNMENT; Social classes; Intellectual life; Intellectual History; Political Sociology; History; History - General History; Popular Culture - General; History: World; Political activity; Intellectuals; General; World - General
Description: Combining history with social theory, this book offers a bold reassessment of the role of radical intellectuals in public life. It explores the potential impact of intellectuals working for social and political change and is important for everyone concerned with such contemporary issues as the future of higher education, the transformation of the public intellectual in Western and non-Western societies, the collapse of socialism, and the paralysis of liberalism.

Illuminating many facets of the relationship between the life of the mind and the life of action, these interdisciplinary essays consider diverse aspects of the role of intellectuals in revolutionary movements, state-centered reforms, and colonial and postcolonial settings. After discussions of how the intellectual as a social type has acquired its politically charged character, chapters are devoted to radical thinkers in England, Germany, Russia, and France. The place of intellectuals in the United States is explored in essays on Progressive liberalism, labor reform, women's rights, and the work of W.E.B. Du Bois. The book concludes with essays on the significance of liberation theology and the ideology of the Chinese student protest movement of 1989.