Synopses & Reviews
Review
"In The Last Intellectuals, Russell Jacoby chronicles the failure of American society to produce public intellectuals over the
past generation. Rather than spawning a new set of cultural critics, our age still looks to older intellectuals when it needs a reasoned response to an issue. But such a function itself is passing from our cultural scene. The intellectuals who emerged during the 1950"s—William F. Buckley, John Kenneth Galbraith, Daniel Bell, as well as C. Wright Mills, Lewis Mumford, Paul Goodman, and others—enjoyed a wide audience for their diverse writings. They wrote to and for America's educated public. Today famous intellectuals are those who enjoy a reputation within their particular discipline. Overwhelmingly, they are academics who address each other to the neglect or disdain of the wider public. Jacoby argues that this change may be traced to the atrophying of a hospitable metropolitan Bohemian environment, the disappearance of the intellectuals in the radical movements of the 1960"s, and the ever extending reach of the university. The strength of this book lies in Jacoby's ability to show how the intellectual's retreat into academia has created a void in our intellectual life." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)