Covering 20th Century intellectuals from Leo Strauss to Franz Rosenzweig, Mark Lilla's timely and accessible exploration of the ties between philosopy, religion, and politics will intrigue all interested in intellectual history and the human pursuit of truth--be it spiritual, civil, or philosophical--in modern life.
Mark Lilla is Professor of Humanities at Columbia University and the author of The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics (available from New York Review Books) and, most recently, of The Stillborn God: Politics, Religion, and the Modern West.
“The most impressive and the most enjoyably stylish book I read
this year … Lilla is a superb commentator on politics and society.
A wise and cautionary volume." —John Banville, The Irish Times,
"Our Favorite Books of the Year"
"The Shipwrecked Mind showcases Lilla’s gift for sketching out such
long histories — and historical mythologies — with a few artful
brushstrokes, covering centuries of thought and politics in a few
pages. (His chapter titled ‘From Luther to Walmart,’ channeling
academics such as Alasdair MacIntyre and Brad Gregory to describe
the post-Reformation descent into today’s rapacious capitalism, is
a minor classic all on its own.)" —Carlos Lozada, The Washington
Post
"Mark Lilla’s graceful, elegant, and concise appraisals of a
variety of reactionary figures could not be more timely." —Andrew
Sullivan
"Mark Lilla is one of America's foremost intellectuals and he has
written an essential book. He argues that we live in an age when
revolutionary ideas have lost their allure but reactionary
ideas—that protest and reject core elements of the modern world—are
gaining strength. As you read these essays, you will be reminded
that ideas matter. John Maynard Keynes once explained that 'madmen
in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their
frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.' To make
sense of the madmen, you need first to understand the scribblers."
—Fareed Zakaria
“Mark Lilla leads us on a fascinating tour of the modern
reactionary mind, shining a fresh light on the ideas and beliefs of
a wide range of thinkers, both famous and forgotten.
Engagingly written and impressively erudite, this is intellectual
biography at its finest.” —Robert Kagan
"Lilla has assembled this brief but far from lightweight volume
from essays….Taken together they have new force, sketching a cast
of mind that has shadowed European thought for a century, and one
that may seem disturbingly familiar to students of American
politics today….as compact and elegant as they are erudite.” —The
New York Times Book Review
“Lilla, a professor of the humanities at Columbia, skillfully
untangles the apocalyptic 'mytho-histories,' 'just-so narratives,'
and 'political bedtime stories' favored by the modern right, in
Europe and America…The best pages in The Shipwrecked Mind are
elegant, concise portraits of refugees from Weimar Europe who fled
to America after the Nazi takeover and brought with them 'some
very large and very dark ideas about the crisis of the age.'” —Sam
Tanenhaus, The New Yorker
“Critical theorists need not accept Lilla’s liberal solution…to
find his analysis and many of his proposals compelling; his plea to
adopt new analytical tools beyond the old-fashioned Left/Right
dichotomy is even more relevant now, such a short time after the
election, and he is right to show that the crisis of democracy
cannot be solved by a division to identity groups and selective
sets of interests.” —Nitzan Levbovic, Critical
Inquiry
"Timely—and illuminating...Lilla’s book offers a fascinating
framework for making sense of our contemporary political
landscape." —Sean Illing, Vox
"At a time when the United States is dealing with radical populism
and Europe is beset with a new far right, Mark Lilla’s The
Shipwrecked Mind is the book to read for a more profound
understanding of what ails us." —E.J. Dionne
“Mark Lilla is the model of an engaged intellectual. These essays
brilliantly explore the unhappy present in the light of history and
philosophy.” —George Packer
“Philosophically timely and politically urgent.” —Avishai
Margalit
"Lilla’s fascinating exploration of political conservatism shows
how various so-called reactionaries have helped shape history….In
revealing the mechanics of political reaction, Lilla approaches the
subject through a unique religious lens. He is a fantastically
gifted essayist, and this short volume collects the best of his
recent work—not simply on political reaction or revolution, but on
subjects including Judaism, Gnosticism, Islam, and Don Quixote.”
—Publishers Weekly
"Though the revolutionary impulse has been analyzed to the point of
overkill, Lilla suggests that its opposite pole has been all but
ignored….Lilla provides a welcome corrective in restoring
analytical balance.” —Kirkus
“In trenchant prose, [Lilla's] work combines a shrewd assessment of
French current events with an impressive command of French history
and literature—a rare example of commentary that is at once
journalistic and scholarly, and deeply informed.” —Overseas Press
Club citation for Best Commentary on International News
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