Hope and Scorn

"Michael Brown investigates the ever-fluctuating relationship between American intellectuals and national politics from the Eisenhower era to Obama's-a story of both persistence and evolution. In Brown's words: "intellectuals have been both whipping boys and wonder workers in American politics, targets of hatred and vessels of hope." Brown tracks political debates over intellectuals across the culture, encompassing an array of thinkers and contexts, from Adlai Stevenson to bell hooks. In crystal-clear and unburdened prose, Brown carries us through six key moments that reveal the larger trends and tensions that defined concerns over intellectuals, their formidable abilities, and their myriad shortcomings"--