Anonymous
Posted July 2, 2003
This is a book rich in ideas and social perception. I most remember the essay on the various theories of Communism, the learned analyses of Sovietologists whose profession suddenly became outmoded. As to the end of ideology itself,that particular idea was I suspect always a bit suspect. The ideology which seems to be sweeping much of the world is the one called ' capitalism- (democracy perhaps attached). There is also unfortunately a worldwide search for the closed mind, most alarmingly exhibited in the Islamic world. The essays of Bell's book are eminently readable and enjoyable. The book could not be recommended more highly.
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More About This Textbook
Overview
Named by the Times Literary Supplement as one of the 100 most influential books since the end of World War II, The End of Ideology has been a landmark in American social thought, regarded as a classic since its first publication in 1962.
Daniel Bell postulated that the older humanistic ideologies derived from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were exhausted, and that new parochial ideologies would arise. In a new introduction to the year 2000 edition, he argues that with the end of communism, we are seeing a resumption of history, a lifting of the heavy ideological blanket and the return of traditional ethnic and religious conflicts in the many regions of the former socialist states and elsewhere.
Editorial Reviews
New York Times Book Review
Originally published in 1960, this collection of essays focuses on the protean nature of American society and the decay of Marxism and other systematic ideologies in the West...Arthur Schlesinger Jr. [has] admired the book's 'unflagging confidence, trenchancy, and authority.'
— Scott Veale
New York Times Book Review
Originally published in 1960, this collection of essays focuses on the protean nature of American society and the decay of Marxism and other systematic ideologies in the West...Arthur Schlesinger Jr. [has] admired the book's 'unflagging confidence, trenchancy, and authority.'— Scott Veale
Product Details
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Meet the Author
Daniel Bell is Henry Ford II Professor of Social Sciences, Emeritus, Harvard University.
Table of Contents
The Resumption of History in the New Century
Introduction: The Restless Vanity
PART 1: AMERICA: THE AMBIGUITIES OF THEORY
1. America as a Mass Society: A Critique
2. The Breakup of Family Capitalism: On Changes in Class in America
3. Is There a Ruling Class in America? The Power Elite Reconsidered
4. The Prospects of American Capitalism: On Keynes, Schumpeter and Gaibraith
5. The Refractions of the American Past: On the Question of National Character
6. Status Politics and New Anxieties: On the "Radical Right" and Ideologies of the Fifties
PART 2: AMERICA: THE COMPLEXITIES OF LIFE
7. Crime as an American Way of Life: A Queer Ladder of Social Mobility
8. The Myth of Crime Waves: The Actual Decline of Crime in the United States
9. The Racket-Ridden Longshoremen: The Web of Economics and Politics
10. The Capitalism of the Proletariat: A Theory of American Trade-Unionism
11. Work and its Discontents: The Cult of Efficiency in America
PART 3: THE EXHAUSTION OF UTOPIA
12. The Failure of American Socialism: The Tension of Ethics and Politics
13. The Mood of Three Generations:
A. The Once-Born, the Twice-Born, and the After-Born
B. The Loss of Innocence in the Thirties
C. Politics in the Forties
D. Dissent in the Fifties
14. Ten Theories in Search of Reality: The Prediction of Soviet Behavior
15. Two Roads from Marx: The Themes of Alienation and Exploitation and Workers' Control in Socialist Thought
The End of Ideology in the West: An Epilogue
Afterword, 1988: The End of Ideology Revisited
Acknowledgment
Notes
Index