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Harold Laski and American Liberalism - Gary Dean Best (Hardcover, New)
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Harold Laski and American Liberalism - Gary Dean Best (Hardcover, New)
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"The British scholar and pundit Harold J. Laski exercised
tremendous influence on American intellectuals from the era of
World War I to that of the early Cold War. Best combines
pathbreaking narrative with a trenchant critique of Laski's
analysis of American life and policy. The research is thorough, the
prose clear. The work makes a real contribution."--Justus D.
Doenecke, Professor of History, New College of Florida, Sarasota
"Britian's Harold Laski (1893-1950) was one of the most
influential public intellectuals of his time. Unlike others to whom
he can be compared, such as Raymond Aron in France and Walter
Lippmann in the United States, Laski was a major force on both
sides of the Atlantic. Best traces Laski's evolution from pluralism
to Marxism." - "Wilson Quarterly"
For nearly three decades, the English political scientist Harold
Laski was the gray eminence of American liberalism and its most
influential Marxist public intellectual. As a fervent proponent of
the New Deal in the 1930s, much of Laski's success stemmed from the
fact that he offered answers when so many Americans had only
questions. By the postwar years, however, his reputation was in
decline and his influence left the Democratic Party vulnerable in
the1948 elections. In "Harold Laski and American Liberalism" Gary
Dean Best traces the trajectory of Laski's American career and
accounts for its ultimate failure.
American politics and society were central to Laski's intellectual
enterprise. As Best shows, probably no one residing in America has
published as many words critical of the United States as did this
Englishman. Virtually no aspect of American life went unscathed,
and yet at the root of every attack was American capitalism, the
businessman, those with property, who, in Laski's view were the
source of all the perversion of American life.
The 1930s was a period of ferment among America's intellectuals.
By the 1940s it was only Laski who was bewildered--at the failure
of his diagnoses and the rejection of his prescriptions even by
those who had been captivated by him in the previous decade. By the
time he died, in 1950, his earlier pronouncements seemed wide of
the mark, and the increased stridency and shrillness produced by
his disappointment had begun to bore even many who had been devoted
to him in earlier years.
As this volume shows, the real tragedy for Laski was that he
allowed his intellect to be captured and held captive by the
Marxian dialectic, denying himself the use of his own reason
despite that dialectic's repeated failures. "Harold Laski and
American Liberalism" will be of interest to intellectual
historians, political scientists, and American studies specialists.
Gary Dean Best is professor emeritus of history at the University
of Hawaii. Among his books are "The Dollar Decade: Mammon and
Machine in 1920s America, The Retreat from Liberalism:
Collectivists versus Progressives in the New Deal Years, The Life
of Herbert Hoover," and "The Nickel and Dime Decade: American
Popular Culture in the 1930s."
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