Imagining the Possible: Radical Politics for Conservative Times

by Stephen Eric Bronner

Overview

Jean-Paul Sartre originally made the term engagement a part of the existentialist vocabulary following WWII. It imples the responsibility of intervening in social or political conflicts in the hope of fostering freedom. Imagining the Possible opens different windows upon this particular engagement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781136779176
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	04/03/2002
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	468 KB

About the Author

Stephen Eric Bronner is Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University. He serves on the editorial boards of the journals New Politics and New Political Science. He is the author of editor of fifteen books, including Moments of Decision (Routledge, 1992), which won APSA's Michael Harrington Book Award.

Table of Contents

Introductio Part I:Socialism and Freedom 1.The Socialist Project 2.Persistent Memories:Jewish Activists and the German Revolution of 1919 3.Confronting Nationalism 4.The Sickness Unto Death:International Communism Before the Deluge 5.Looking Backwards:1968 Thirty Years After Part II:Words and Needs 1.Red Dreams and the New Millennium:Remarks on Rosa Luxemborg 2.The Limits of Metatheory:Political Reflections on the Dialectics of Enlightenment 3.Foundations for a Spirit of Resistance:the War Diaries by Jean-Paul Sartre 4.Remembering Henry Pachter Poltics and Judgement Part III:Democracy and its Challenges 1.Transforming the State 2.Ecology, Politics, and Risk The Angst of Affirmative Action 4.Neo-Conservatism and the New Right in the United States and Abroad 5.Intellectuals, Democracy, and Society

Editorial Reviews

A very compelling manuscript, by one of the most interesting Leftward writers on political theory, the more so for reviving such figures as Ernst Bloch, Rosa Luxemburg and Jean Paul Sartre, who all seem due a major re-evaluation, and for reviving the experiences of the 1960s in new and positive light.

Paul Buhle

In this classy and engaging collection, Bronner helps keep alive a critical reflection threatened by both antiquarian Marxists and policy wonks.

Russell Jacoby

"The notions of socialism, democracy, & internationalism, & the contributions of various activists & intellectuals in these areas, are analyzed to determine whether social & political change is possible in the contemporary world. Several 20th-century events & movements that significantly influenced leftist politics are studied." — J.W. Parker, Sociological Abstracts
"Wonderfully rich, unpredictable, and nuanced, these essays call us back to a way of thinking radically that, had the American left only reckoned with it better, might have kept many of us more engaged. With acuity and candor, Stephen Eric Bronner leavens his pragmatism with a humanist idealism that reintroduces hope to politics." — Jim Sleeper, The Closest of Strangers and Liberal Racism
"In this classy and engaging collection, Bronner helps keep alive a critical reflection threatened by both antiquarian Marxists and policy wonks." — Russell Jacoby, UCLA, and author of The End of Utopia

From the Publisher