Discontents: Postmodern and Postcommunist [Hardcover]

Paul Hollander (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 430 pages
• Publisher: Transaction Publishers (January 21, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076580090X
• ISBN-13: 978-0765800909
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,687,595 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Was there an editor?, May 27, 2002

By 

Texan (San Antonio, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Discontents: Postmodern and Postcommunist (Hardcover)

I am thoroughly enjoying the CONTENT of these essays, but the mindboggling number of typographical errors is dismaying. I am talking at least five-to-ten misspellings per page, page after page. Not only does it distract from the flow of reading, it discourages me from sharing Hollander's wisdom, because I fear others would assume from the poor editing that he does not know what he is talking about. I wish I could return this edition and wait for a corrected copy, because the insights and perceptions are inspiring...but please get another editor!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superb anthology critical of the academic left, June 23, 2002

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Integrity Reviews (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Discontents: Postmodern and Postcommunist (Hardcover)

Professor Hollander is one of America's most pungent analysts of the sad state of American sociology, and has for many years been a courageous and outspoken critic of the dominance of the academic left on university campuses. The present volume is an anthology of some of his best writings from 1992 to the present. If you want to understand where such things as political correctness, affirmative action, post-modernism, deconstructionism, radical feminism, and selective intolerance come from, and what they really mean in the academic world and for the future of America, this is the book to read. This volume makes many unique contributions, but also updates and expands some concepts from Dr. Hollander's classic "The Survival of the Adversary Culture (1988)."

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Uneven but Wonderful., May 23, 2004

By 

Bernard Chapin "Ora Et Labora!" (CHICAGO! USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Discontents: Postmodern and Postcommunist (Hardcover)

Discontents is prolonged and efficient siege on the seductive and corrupt ideas that have hypnotized our cognitive elite. He thoroughly debunks the hogwash which poses as scholarship today. Hollander offers no circumlocution. No target evades him and, in a little over 400 pages, his pen turns the dogma of academia to verbose scrapple.
The book is comprised of 25 essays and most of them are brilliant. They should be read again and again. This is particularly true of his introduction, "`Imagined Tyranny'? Political Correctness Reconsidered," "Reassessing the Adversary Culture," "The Pursuit of Identity, Community and Social Justice," and, lastly, "Marxism and Western Intellectuals in the Post-communist Era."
The remainder are average or better with the exception being a piece regarding Coppola's film, "Godfather II." This was his only offering with a conclusion I disagreed with, and I regard its inclusion in the collection as a mistake.
Without question, Paul Hollander is an expert on the subject of which he writes. He is a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a fellow of Russian Studies at Harvard University, but his career is miles from winding down as he will soon release a title on anti-Americanism.
Should Hollander be named to a college presidency, cultural Marxism would soon go the way of Khmer Rouge apologists. There would be no where to hide from his supervision. To him, a politically correct campus is one that includes the following: the presence of speech codes, advantages in financial aid, admission or recruitment for designated groups, an allowance for group self-segregation like in dormitories, freshman orientation programs drenched in leftist dogma, the presence of black studies, women studies, or gay studies, required courses in multiculturalism, required sensitivity training for staff, and, lastly, computing the profile of the school's average commencement speaker and whether they are consistently on the left of the political spectrum.
In my mind, the book's strongest passage is Hollander's dissection of what is known as "selective determinism." I acknowledge that some readers were already aware of this concept, but I was unaware of it until reading Discontents. Selective determinism suggests that, for some blessed members of the population, nothing they do is their fault.
This minority, which strangely makes up 70% of the population, is excused and forgiven because they are deemed oppressed and were embroidered with a pink letter "O" at birth. They are not individuals. Their lives have been steered by societal forces that, like a powerful undertow, drags them in directions they never intended to go.
In summation, Paul Hollander's Discontents documents the humane need to triumph over lies wherever we encounter them. The contributions of this exceptional man invigorate our side in the culture war; a side that stands for free speech, liberty, and honesty. As for me, I will not sell my personal copy nor loan it out, but, should I ever awake to find a Swedish PC Inspector armed with several pens and an assistant at the door, you can be sure I'll toss the text into a pre-constructed secret panel before inviting them in for a microscopic tour of Abba records and Jessie Jackson Cat in the Hat books on tape.