Book Review: United State: The New Radicalism in America (1889–1963)
| Author | Ramsay Cook |
| Date | 01 December 1965 |
| Published date | 01 December 1965 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206502000421 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REVIEWS
549
few
educated
persons
would
challenge,
and
proceed
merely
to
illu-
minate a
particular
area
of public
'policy. This
is
not,
in
short,
the
sort
of encyclopedia
that
will
make a
revolution.
It
seems
to
me
that
the
fact
that
so
much
high
quality
discussion
of
current
policy
questions
has
been
assembled
so
readily
reveals
the
need
for
a
journal
for
the
discussion
of
public
policy.
The existing
journals
provide
a
more
or
less
adequate
outlet
for
more
scholarly
and
specialized
writing
by
Canadians.
But
there
is
no
recognized
place
for
good
academic
writing
aimed
at
the
policy-makers
and
the
public.
The
Toronto
group
has
shown
again
that
there
is
an
ample
supply
of
capable
men
with
ideas
who
have something
of
importance
to
say
about
the
good
government
of Canada.
It is
difficult
out
of
so
many, to
single
out
the
most
praiseworthy
of
these
essays.
To
avoid
making
invidious
comparisons
among
so
many worthy Torontonians,
I
shall
content
myself with
noting
A.
E.
Safarian's
lucid
and
well
written
discussion of
the
tiresome issue
of
foreign
ownership
and
control
of
Canadian
industry.
It is a
model
of
skilful
demolition
of
nonsense
in
high
places. The economists
at
Toronto
must
regret
his
return
to
the
University
of
Saskatchewan.
McGill
University
J. R.
MALLORY
United
States
THE
Nsw
RADICALISM
IN
AMERICA
(1889-1963).
The
Intellectual
as
a
Social Type.
By
Christopher
Lasch.
1965.
(New York:
Alfred
A.
Knopf.
Toronto:
Random
House. xvii,
349pp.
$8.75)
Although
educated
at
Harvard
and
Columbia,
Professor
Lasch,
who
was
born and
now
teaches
in
the
Middle
West, has
not
succumbed
to
any
of
the
obvious
forms
of
intellectualism
now
flourishing
in
the
Eastern
United
States.
Neither
the
New
Frontier
nor
the
New
Left
appeal
to
him
and,
though
clearly
a
radical
thinker
himself,
he
does
not
belong to
the mainstream
of
American
intellectual
radicalism,
at
least
as
he
defines
it.
His
new
book
is a
scholarly,
well-written,
yet
at
the
same time provocative
and
argumentative
analysis
of some
aspects
of
American
history
in
the
last
seventy-five
years.
The
analysis
revolves
around
two closely
related
theses.
The
first
is
that
one
legitimate
way
of
examining
the
"new
radicalism"
is
through
biography,
and
that
biographical
studies
of
untypical
people
will
reveal
fundamental
currents
in
American
life.
What
his
biogra-
phies
reveal
is
that
each
of
the
"new
radicals"
was
in
revolt
against
the
"genteel
tradition"
of
middle-class society.
The
second,
and
more
significant,
thesis
is
that
the
revolt
of
these radical
intellectuals,
from
Jane
Addams
to
Norman
Mailer,
in
fact
followed
the
path
of
anti-
intellectualism.
They
opted
not for
the
life
of
intellect
but
rather
for
the
life
of
action.
As
Benjamin
Ginzberg,
an
obscure
writer
of
the
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