Liberalism's Crooked Circle [Hardcover]

Ira Katznelson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 1996

This book is a profoundly moving and analytically incisive attempt to shift the terms of discussion in American politics. It speaks to the intellectual and political weaknesses within the liberal tradition that have put the United States at the mercy of libertarian, authoritarian populist, nakedly racist, and traditionalist elitist versions of the right-wing; and it seeks to identify resources that can move the left away from the stunned intellectual incoherence with which it has met the death of Bolshevism. In Ira Katznelson's view, Americans are squandering a tremendous ethical and political opportunity to redefine and reorient the liberal tradition. In an opening essay and two remarkable letters addressed to Adam Michnik, who is arguably East Europe's emblematic democratic intellectual, Katznelson seeks to recover this possibility. By examining issues that once occupied Michnik's fellow dissidents in the Warsaw group known as the Crooked Circle, Katznelson brings a fresh realism to old ideals and posits a liberalism that "stares hard" at cruelty, suffering, coercion, and tyrannical abuses of state power. Like the members of Michnik's club, he recognises that the circumference of liberalism's circle never runs smooth and that tolerance requires extremely difficult judgments. Katznelson's first letter explores how the virtues of socialism, including its moral stand on social justice, can be related to liberalism while overcoming debilitating aspects of the socialist inheritance. The second asks whether liberalism can recognise, appreciate, and manage human difference. Situated in the lineage of efforts by Richard Hofstadter, C. Wright Mills, and Lionel Trilling to "thicken" liberalism, these letters also draw on personal experience in the radical politics of the 1960's and in the dissident culture of East and Central Europe in the years immediately preceding communism's demise. "Liberalism's Crooked Circle" could help foster a substantive debate in the American elections of 1996 and determine the contents of that desperately needed discussion.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Katznelson (political science and history, Columbia Univ.; City Trenches, 1981) here addresses the contemporary crisis of left-wing politics by redefining and "revaluing" the liberal tradition. Rather than presenting a conventional social-scientific analysis, his intervention takes the form of two lengthy epistles to Polish-Jewish dissident Adam Michnik. Katznelson's prose style is as elegant as his political stance is sophisticated. This is a subtle, searching examination of liberalism's complicated relationship to concerns about class inequality and social difference. The book should appeal to readers interested in "the pressing task of discovering an ethical and political imagination sufficiently resourceful to grapple with current challenges and responsibilities." Unrepentant leftists, as well as advocates of an undiluted capitalism, will find much to disagree with in this short, pithy volume. But they should also find Katznelson's savoir faire intellectually bracing. Recommended for all academic libraries.?Kent Worcester, Social Science Research Council, New York
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Historically grounded and sociologically realistic--[this] is a great success." -- Joshua Cohen, Boston Review

"[A] thoughtful and eminently readable contribution to debates about the future of liberalism.... [Katznelson] argues for a synthesis of the most progressive elements of political liberalism with the strengths of the socialist critique of capitalism." -- William E. Scheuerman, Political Science Quarterly

[An] unusual and inventive work. -- Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 232 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press; 1St Edition edition (April 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691034389
• ISBN-13: 978-0691034386
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,530,873 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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