Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10371 in Books
• Published on: 1966-02-12
• Released on: 1966-02-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Walter Laqueur
"The most comprehensive, succinct, and well-written one-volume treatment of the subject now available."

From the Publisher
"The most comprehensive, succinct, and well-written one-volume treatment of the subject now available."--Walter Laqueur

Customer Reviews

Old Friend
Last time I read this book I was travelling by plane from Charleston W. Va to Knoxville TN, in fall of 1968. The book was so fascinating that I read most of it non stop during the ride and waiting to change plans at a small mountain airport. The book suited my mood and my contemplations of society at that time. Unfortunately, I left the book on the plane when I arrived at my destination. I made mental note to buy it back, but never did, until reding another recent book on a kindred theme. On re-reading, I noticed that very little has changed, both in my mindset and in the surrounding society. The book did not lose its taste nor actuality. Highly recommended

Beam me up Scotty
Hofstadter's book was published in 1963, a period when I was a timid third grader, hands crossed, attending a Catholic school in suburban Detroit. As I fast forward to today, thinking back at the state of intellectualism in the days of Camelot, besieged as it was by the ever present threat of nuclear attack, a spirit of intellectual discovery from the the depths of the seas to farthest reaches of space enthralled America's collective imagination; I cannot help but liken the state of today's critical thought to that of a dark age, where so many of our educator scholars sit at their cubicles, cafe expresso in hand, dispassionately perusing internet articles foretelling the end of world. It would be so easy to pass off everything wrong to the ignoramus leadership of George W. Bush, and naively come to the conclusion that reason and enlightenment will automatically resume itself with his all too welcomed departure; and while we all hope that such a scenario will play itself out in this way, the history of anti-intellectualism in America reveals a tradition of an effiminate aristocracy of old, wholly contrary to egalitarian notions of a practical eduction. One need not look further than the America's primary and secondary schools throughout the last half of nineteeth and early twentieth century to support Hofstadter's assertions. Where else in the developed world are teachers paid less on a per capita basis than in the United States. Is it any small wonder that with such abysmal pay persons who are attracted to the field frequently neither prodigiously read or write? How can someone who has not mastered their craft, whatever that might me, be able to serve in the role of mentor in an area for which they have limited proclivities. It is not at all unusual for today's teacher to have little if any time to read literature for pleasure due to all of the bureaucratic responsibilities foisted on them professionally. We have somehow devolved to the point that teachers have become robots, whose role increasingly that of feeding children at a trough for an almighty test. When will we be allowed to scholars and deal with the real issues vexing this generation of young people?

anti-intellectualism in american life
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life I found this book shocking as to the lack of education in the late 1800's to 1930's. I also found it difficult to read due to small print & depth of subject. I had to read several paragraphs over. It was referenced on
"The Today Show" in connection with Susaan Jacobys "The Age of American Unreason." I decided to read the oldest book 1st & have not yet read Jacobys'