American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword

Rating:
Summary: Chapter 6 by itself is worth the price.
Review: As someone lucky enough to be employed at an American university, I really appreciated Chapter 6: "American Intellectuals-Mostly on the Left, Some Politically Incorrect." On page 188 we read [as a quote] "American academic Marxism is politically irrelevant and marginal and compensates for its political nullity by seeking hegemony within academic institutions" Same page:"As Hayek noted half a century ago, in an analysis that is even more true today, the conservative bourgeoisie control the economy while the campus anti-establishmentarians dominate intellectual life in the humanitites and much of the social sciences..." Lipset also makes the stimulating suggestion that as vulgar Marxism has been discredited in the social sciences it has retreated into the humanities

Rating:
Summary: Some good stuff here, but basically a collection of articles
Review: First chapter is quite good on the basics of American Exceptionalism as Lipset sees it. But the rest of the book doesn't hang together very well. As previous reviewer noted, the chapter on intellectuals is quite interesting, and so is the chapter on Jews, but they don't fit in to any overall argument. These chapters were all published in many places over a considerable period of time, and it shows. Not a coherent work, but an interesting first chapter.

Rating:
Summary: Some good stuff here, but basically a collection of articles
Review: First chapter is quite good on the basics of American Exceptionalism as Lipset sees it. But the rest of the book doesn't hang together very well. As previous reviewer noted, the chapter on intellectuals is quite interesting, and so is the chapter on Jews, but they don't fit in to any overall argument. These chapters were all published in many places over a considerable period of time, and it shows. Not a coherent work, but an interesting first chapter.