Thinkers of the New Left
 Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Roger Scruton |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Subject | New Left |
| Publisher | Longman |
Publication date | 1985 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback) |
| Pages |
277 (first edition) 304 (revised edition) |
| ISBN | 9780582902732 |
Thinkers of the New Left (1985; second edition 2015) is a book by the English philosopher Roger Scruton, in which he analyses and criticizes the New Left. In the first edition, Scruton concentrates on 14 representatives of the movement: E. P. Thompson, Ronald Dworkin, Michel Foucault, R. D. Laing, Raymond Williams, Rudolf Bahro, Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Immanuel Wallerstein, Jürgen Habermas, Perry Anderson, György Lukács, John Kenneth Galbraith and Jean-Paul Sartre.[1]
The revised edition was published as Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left. It includes new chapters on the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, Edward Said, Alain Badiou, Jacques Lacan, Gilles Deleuze, and the Lacanian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, while the older chapters on Laing and Bahro have been removed.[2][3][4]
According to Scruton, he was motivated to write the book by his travels in communist Eastern Europe, and by his frustration with Western European scholars who did not acknowledge the situation in these countries.[2]
Reception
The book received considerable negative response from the political left in Britain and this had consequences for Scruton's career. In retrospection, Scruton described it as "the beginning of the end of my academic career".[2]
Publishers Weekly reviewed the revised version in 2015 and described it as "a sharp-edged, provocative critique of leading leftist thinkers since the mid-20th century". The critic wrote: "This complex and erudite study is neither an easy read nor a reactionary screed. The overly zippy, alliterative new title does not indicate the depth or seriousness of the analysis."[5]
Kirkus Reviews wrote the same year: "Refreshingly, Scruton does not mince words, exposing the wooden abstractions and frequent absurdities of these untouchables, especially with regard to the manipulation of language. Caustic, highly recherché, and simply great fun to read for the questing intellectual soul."[6]
References
- ↑ Scruton, Roger. Thinkers of the New Left. Longman Group Limited, 1985, pp. 10–176.
- 1 2 3 Adams, Tim (2015-10-04). "Roger Scruton: 'Funnily enough, my father looked very like Jeremy Corbyn'". The Guardian. Retrieved 2015-10-10.
- ↑ http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/10/fools-frauds-and-firebrands-thinkers-of-the-new-left-roger-scuton-review
- ↑ http://www.spiked-online.com/spiked-review/article/interview-roger-scruton#.Vnm_JBV97IU
- ↑ "Nonfiction Book Review: Fools, Frauds, and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left by Roger Scruton". Publishers Weekly. 2015-08-03. Retrieved 2015-10-10.
- ↑ "Fools, Frauds and Firebrands". Kirkus Reviews. 2015-09-03. Retrieved 2015-10-10.
External links
- Fools, Frauds and Firebrands at the publisher's website