New York Intellect: A History of Intellectual Life in New York City from 1750 to the Beginnings of Our Own Time

by Thomas Bender

Book Overview

New York Intellect is Thomas Bender's remarkable look at the connections between the life of a city and the life of the mind. New York has never been comfortable or convenient as a milieu for art and intellect, Bender notes. Yet New Yorkers have always struggled to create institutions and styles of thought and writing that reflect the special character of the city, its boundless energies and deep divisions.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801836395
• ISBN13: 9780801836398
• Release Date: March 1988
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.2" x 9.2"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

the intellectual style of a city

In New York Intellect, Thomas Bender provides a guide to the history of intellectual life in America's cultural capital. He takes it through three phases which are based on the preoccupations of the city's intelligentsia during different periods: first, a city in which cultural institutions brought together an intellectual elite, next, a city with an explicitly literary orientation, and finally, the international capital of culture with an academic orientation. For students of cultural, intellectual, and/or urban history (which I am) this is essential reading. It's a good read for anyone interested in the history of New York City or the intellectual life of a city in general.