© Columbia University Press
The Intellectuals and the Flag
Paper, 192 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-12493-5
$22.95
/ £15.95
January, 2006
Cloth, 192 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-12492-8
$70.00
/ £48.50
"Gitlin's liberal patriotism is an affirmation of membership in our society and of participation in the American experiment." — Elbert Ventura, Cleveland Plain Dealer
"What else could Gitlin do but resemble the greats? He's a force." — Tony Dokoupil, New York Press
"If you are tired of a left politics assigned to the margins... buy this book. And then get to work." — Stewart Nusbaumer, Intervention Magazine
"A blunt, frank analysis of the current state of the left." — Jim Agnew, Jagnew.com
"Todd Gitlin's The Intellectuals and the Flag is illuminating." — Gerald Russello, New York Sun
"His insights and perceptions strike me as succinct, on target, clear-eyed and revelatory." — Sam Coale, Providence Journal
"Gitlin is certainly a thoughtful, intelligent, and important critic... Recommended." — Choice
"The Intellectuals and the Flag proves that social criticism of a high caliber has not completely disappeared from American public life." — Alan Wolfe, Commonweal
"[A] valuable book, well worth reading and pondering." — Wilfred M. McClay, Claremont Review of Books
"A particularly eloquent rendering of the inevitable and proper post-9/11 patriotism that affected the left no less than the right or center." — Chronicle of Higher Education
"Of all the voices to be heard since 9/11, Todd Gitlin's is among the most welcome. While others—on left and right—have lost their heads, Gitlin has used the occasion to rethink and reassert where he stands on questions of power, political authority, civic engagement, patriotism, and much else. This is a bracing and admirable book. " — Mark Lilla, University of Chicago, author of The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics
"How might one reconcile patriotism with dissent? Love of country with the critical spirit? Grounded commitment with the Great Refusal? Have the events of September 11 changed the nature of our response? These are just some of the topical themes that Todd Gitlin addresses in his luminous new study, The Intellectuals and the Flag. Here is Gitlin at his best: lucid, insightful, thought-provoking, and broad-minded. A latter-day Tom Paine, Gitlin is quite simply the most informed voice writing in America today about the volatile interface between politics and culture." — Richard Wolin, City University of New York, author of The Seduction of Unreason: The Intellectual Romance with Fascism from Nietzsche to Postmodernism
"Todd Gitlin has joined Irving Howe, Michael Walzer, Michael Harrington, and Christopher Lasch in the ranks of our nation’s most brilliant, important, and perceptive social critics. The Intellectuals and the Flag will confirm that reputation. Gitlin is fearless: he challenges the status quo and his own side. He insists that the Left has a moral obligation to stop marginalizing itself and to change the country by appealing to our traditions of democracy, equality and community. We need critics who are patriots—and patriots who are critics. Gitlin shows that patriotism need not be, and should not be, the last refuge of scoundrels." — E. J. Dionne Jr., author of Why Americans Hate Politics and Stand Up Fight Back