A brilliant examination of a timely concept from one of the nation's great public intellectuals.
Russell Jacoby has written essays, op-eds and book reviews for newspapers and magazines from Los Angeles Times to The New Republic and Harper's. The topics of his books range from the place of psychology in American society (Social Amnesia- A Critique of Conformist Psychology) to the role of utopian thought (The End of Utopia- Politics and Culture in the Age of Apathy) and the origins of violence (Bloodlust- On the Roots of Violence from Cain and Abel to the Present). His Last Intellectuals- American Culture in the Age of Academe introduced a term that has been picked up everywhere-- "public intellectual"--and is considered an essential text in American letters. His books have been translated into a dozen languages. Originally from New York, he has a Ph.D. in history from the University of Rochester, where he worked with Christopher Lasch. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches history at UCLA. In 2017 Jacoby was short-listed for the Times Literary Supplement's All Authors Must Have Prizes Prize.
“On Diversity is philosophically generous, occasionally witty,
tightly reasoned and engagingly written." --Barton Swaim, Wall
Street Journal
"This is an insightful, thought-provoking book which raises
intriguing questions, and I enjoyed reading it."
--popmatters.com
"Russell Jacoby has written a cogent and provocative essay on the
paradoxes of identity, and he asks questions that yield no
comforting answers. Does a concern with diversity of cultures
strengthen diversity of thought? Has the global scaling-up of
American mass society left us with more groups and fewer
individuals? A highly personal inquiry into the jargon of
authenticity, this book is also a fascinating history of a central
modern idea." —David Bromwich, Sterling Professor of English, Yale
University, and author of American Breakdown
"In this book, as he has throughout his career, Russell Jacoby asks
the necessary questions, the ones few other contemporary writers
care to pose. How is it, he wonders, that the explosion of
officially sanctioned “diversity” has been accompanied by a decline
of individuality? His answer takes us on a scintillating journey
through the history of ideas, including Constant, Herder,
Tocqueville, Mill, Herzen, Burckhardt, Durkheim, Randolph Bourne,
Walter Benjamin, and many others. On Diversity is
first-rate intellectual history and penetrating cultural
criticism.” —George Scialabba, author of Low Dishonest
Decades and What Are Intellectuals Good For?
“Russell Jacoby is the best kind of intellectual provocateur, a
philosopher skeptic who knows that the pursuit of justice does not
in itself yield truth and often enough yields falsehood. In On
Diversity, he tackles some of the core pieties of our time, and
drives home a central paradox, that the shibboleth of diversity
cloaks a world of increasingly soulless uniformity. Immensely
learned yet unfailingly lucid, Jacoby will make you think harder
than you ever have about things you thought you knew.”
—Sean Wilentz, George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American
History at Princeton University and award-winning author most
recently of No Property in Man
"Russell Jacoby’s new book offers an implacable and unprecedented
dose of resistance to an unreflective mantra. Without denying
group-based injustice in American life, Jacoby bracingly affirms
the importance of the individual distinction that our classic
thinkers identified as the ultimate aspiration for an age of
accelerating conformity in how we raise our children, what we wear,
and how we talk. A must-read." —Samuel Moyn, Henry R. Luce
Professor of Jurisprudence and Professor of History, Yale
University, and author of Not Enough: Human Rights in an
Unequal World
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