Modernity and Its Discontents Making and Unmaking the Bourgeois from Machiavelli to Bellow |
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| Author:
| Smith, Steven B. |
| ISBN: | 978-0-300-19839-3 |
| Publication Date: | Aug 2016 |
| Publisher: | Yale University Press
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| Book Format: | Hardback |
| List Price: | USD $45.00USD $45.00 |
Book Description:
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Steven B. Smith examines the concept of modernity, not as the end product of historical developments but as a state of mind. He explores modernism as a source of both pride and anxiety, suggesting that its most distinctive characteristics are the self-criticisms and doubts that accompany social and political progress. Providing profiles of the modern project's most powerful defenders and critics--from Machiavelli and Spinoza to Saul Bellow and Isaiah Berlin--this provocative work...
More DescriptionSteven B. Smith examines the concept of modernity, not as the end product of historical developments but as a state of mind. He explores modernism as a source of both pride and anxiety, suggesting that its most distinctive characteristics are the self-criticisms and doubts that accompany social and political progress. Providing profiles of the modern project's most powerful defenders and critics--from Machiavelli and Spinoza to Saul Bellow and Isaiah Berlin--this provocative work of philosophy and political science offers a novel perspective on what it means to be modern and why discontent and sometimes radical rejection are its inevitable by-products.