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A devastating account of the American left during wartime, and at war with itself

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction: On Time 1 Nowhere Left to Go 2 Root Causes 3 Iraq: The Hard Road to Debacle 4 Cultural Studies and Political Crisis5 What Is This "Cultural" in Cultural Studies? Conclusion: Equality and Freedom Notes Works cited Index About the Author

About the Author

Michael Bérubé is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature and Director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Penn State University. In 2012, he served as the President of the Modern Language Association. He is the author of several books, including Employment of English: Theory, Jobs, and the Future of Literary Studies (NYU Press, 1997), The Left at War (NYU Press, 2009), What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts?: Classroom Politics and “ Bias” in Higher Education (2006), and Life as We Know It: A Father, A Family, and an Exceptional Child (1996).

Reviews

"Berube links progressives' inability to control the conversation on national security during the Bush administration to cultural studies' failure to deliver on its promise of a vibrant New Left. And in the process, he also tries to imagine a newer and better one-a left that both knows what is worth fighting for and how to fight for it." - American Prospect "You'll rejoice that there's such an intelligent and even-minded critic of the left who takes his principles seriously enough to challenge those who threaten to destroy them from within." - Bookforum "Provides robust intellectual arguments for how to reshape leftist thought into a powerful, constructive and measurably successful political philosophy... His effort not only identifies left-wing excesses and elevates its more viable and strategically sound currents, but puts critical thinking back into vogue on both sides of the political spectrum." - Publishers Weekly "Indefatigably clear-minded and relentlessly researched, Berube's The Left at War offers an invaluable excavation of just what has gone wrong, and occasionally right, with the academic/intellectual left in America. Anyone concerned with its future will be relying on this work for many years to come." - Eric Alterman, author of Why We're Liberals "A rigorous, hard-hitting, and impressively detailed critique and account of the United States left during wartime-and at war with itself. It is far and away the most thoroughly reasoned and researched brief for a middle way between a predictably anti-imperialist left and a revoltingly hawkish liberalism, and in this it is immensely useful both as a guide to recent debates and as a sort of internationalist handbook. Rousing, engrossing, principled, and brave." - Eric Lott, author of The Disappearing Liberal Intellectual