Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
![Loading indicator](/images/ajax-loader-bar.gif)
"We don't understand the reactionary mind. As a result, argues Mark Lilla in this timely book, the ideas and passions that shape today's political dramas are unintelligible to us. The reactionary is anything but a conservative. He is as radical and modern a figure as the revolutionary, someone shipwrecked in the rapidly changing present, and suffering from nostalgia for an idealized past and an apocalyptic fear that history is rushing toward catastrophe. And like the revolutionary his political engagements are motived by highly developed ideas. Lilla unveils the structure of reactionary thinking, beginning with three twentieth-century philosophers--Franz Rosenzweig, Eric Voegelin, and Leo Strauss --who attributed the problems of modern society to a break in the history of ideas and promoted a return to earlier modes of thought. He then examines the enduring power of grand historical narratives of betrayal to shape political outlooks ever since the French Revolution. These narratives are employed to serve different, and sometimes expressly opposed, ends. They appear in the writings of Europe's right-wing cultural pessimists and Maoist neocommunists, American theoconservatives fantasizing about the harmony of medieval Catholic society and radical Islamists seeking to restore a vanished Muslim caliphate. The revolutionary spirit that inspired political movements across the world for two centuries may have died out. But the spirit of reaction that rose to meet it has survived and is proving just as formidable a historical force. We live in an age when the tragicomic nostalgia of Don Quixote for a lost golden age has been transformed into a potent and sometimes deadly weapon. Mark Lilla helps us to understand why"--
Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
![Loading indicator](/images/ajax-loader-bar.gif)
Previews available in: English
Showing 2 featured editions. View all 2 editions?
Edition | Availability |
---|---|
1
The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction
Mar 14, 2017, Tantor Audio
audio cd
151596986X 9781515969860
|
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
2 |
aaaa
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
Book Details
Table of Contents
Edition Notes
Classifications
The Physical Object
ID Numbers
Source records
marc_openlibraries_sanfranciscopubliclibrary MARC recordBetter World Books record
Internet Archive item record
amazon.com record
Promise Item
marc_columbia MARC record
Promise Item
Links outside Open Library
Community Reviews (0)
Feedback?History
- Created July 19, 2019
- 9 revisions
Wikipedia citation
×CloseCopy and paste this code into your Wikipedia page. Need help?
January 14, 2023 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
December 19, 2022 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
December 14, 2022 | Edited by CoverBot | //covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/13090490-S.jpg |
December 7, 2022 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
July 19, 2019 | Created by MARC Bot | Imported from marc_openlibraries_sanfranciscopubliclibrary MARC record |