With gravity and wit, the late University of Chicago sociologist
honors ten prominent 20th-century intellectuals and evokes for
posterity their continental scholarly world. Introducing the
collection is Epstein's lively essay on his friend Shils, in which
the latter emerges as a classic Chicago intellectual - formidable,
possessed of a wide-ranging intellect, acerbic, without
self-congratulation, and always able to make "intellectual effort
seem worthwhile." The subjects of Shils's profiles shared the same
devotion to ideas and were possessed, as Shils characterizes Polish
intellectual Leopold Labedz, by "an insatiable drive to absorb the
content of any printed surface." Some men, like Robert Maynard
Hutchins and Harold Laski, were known as public intellectuals;
others, like John Nef, made lasting marks through teaching and
scholarship. Shils presents each in detail (e.g., Labedz ate no
vegetables and drank Diet Coke) with vivid historical background
(Sidney Hook's 1920s New York was "never a city for clergymen's
daughters") and trenchant observations and analyses. He is
particularly good at pinpointing character assets and deficits. In
Hutchins, for example, who led the University of Chicago with
distinction but into some decline, he saw two flaws: a failure of
intellect that told him basic human truths were "capable of general
and exact formulation" and a flawed judgment that gave him
"unquestioning loyalty to those undeserving of it." Italian scholar
Arnoldo Momigliano was, simply, "one of the greatest scholars of
his age, perhaps of any age." Throughout the collection also run
common threads: the theme of exile occasioned by ideology or
persecution, and the contested place of the intellectual in
society. Free of academic jargon and glamour, these essays delight
with their lucidity and sharp judgment of character, and they stir
one with their quiet urgency, the conviction that these figures
should be remembered. (Kirkus Reviews)
In these vivid portraits of prominent twentieth-century
intellectuals, Edward Shils couples the sensitivity of a biographer
with the profound knowledge of a highly respected scholar. Ranging
as widely across various disciplines as Shils himself did, the
essays gathered here share a distaste for faddists who "run with
the intellectual mob" and a deep respect for intellectuals who
maintain their integrity under great pressure.
Highlights include an affectionate treatment of Leo Szilard, the
physicist whose involvement with the development of the atomic bomb
led him to work ceaselessly to address its social consequences; a
discussion of the educational philosophy of Robert Maynard
Hutchins, the University of Chicago's fifth and most controversial
president; an appreciative account of the Polish emigre Leopold
Labedz's well-informed and outspoken resistance to Communism; and
an essay about the extraordinary Indian writer Nirad Chaudhuri.
Many of these essays have appeared in "The American Scholar,"
edited by Joseph Epstein, who introduces this volume with his own
portrait of Edward Shils.
"Though professionally a sociologist, Edward Shils was a man of
wide cosmopolitan culture and experience, greatly concerned with
the public problems of his time: in particular with those created
by the rise of new and dangerous ideologies, the frightening
possibilities of science, and the apparent abrogation of public
responsibility by many Western intellectuals."--Hugh Trevor-Roper
The late Edward Shils was a member of the University of Chicago's
Committee on Social Thought for forty-five years and a fellow of
Peterhouse, Cambridge University. His many books include "The
Calling ofSociology" and "The Intellectuals and the Powers," both
published by the University of Chicago Press.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
