Marginalized in the Middle - Hardcover

Wolfe, Alan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226905160 ISBN 13: 9780226905167

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1996

Synopsis

In this text Alan Wolfe moves from the "golden age" of social criticism of the 1940s and 1950s to the social sciences of today, all in an effort to understand how and why social criticism should be done at all. Addressing volatile social issues such as gender, pornography, race, welfare, immigration, and schooling, the author examines the ills of American society in the 1990s.

About this title

About the Author

Alan Wolfe is professor emeritus of political science at Boston College as well as a contributing editor to the Wilson Quarterly. He is the author of One Nation, After All: What Middle-Class Americans Really Think About God, Country, Family, Racism, Welfare, Immigration, Homosexuality, Work, the Right, the Left, and Each Other, a 1999 New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

From the Back Cover

Addressing volatile social issues such as gender, pornography, race, welfare, immigration, and schooling, Wolfe examines the ills of American society in the 1990s. Through readings of Andrew Hacker, Elijah Anderson, and Christopher Jencks, for example, he offers a penetrating critique of our thinking about race. Similarly, his discussion of gender and feminism questions whether feminists have sacrificed the concerns of women for the sake of theory. Wolfe uses these and other readings to illustrate the paradoxes of social criticism. Exposing the weaknesses of mere polemics, Wolfe shows how some critics sacrifice fruitful social criticism for the sake of preserving political commitments. He concludes that social criticism does not lie within the boundaries of either left-wing or right-wing ideas, but rather is connected to a broad understanding of liberalism. Wolfe shows that it is possible to be critical and fair at the same time, and fair at the same time, and pinpoints exactly what is at stake in these controversial debates. This immensely readable book illustrates the power of social criticism to enlarge discussion of issues at the heart of democracy today.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226905160
• ISBN 13: 9780226905167
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304