The Bittersweet Century

By Paul N. Goldstene and Victor Jones

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0883165597
• ISBN13: 9780883165591
• Release Date: April 1989
• Publisher: Chandler & Sharp Pub
• Length: 220 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 0.8" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Excerpts from reviews

"A powerful and penetrating indictment of liberalism in theory and practice in which Goldstene demonstrates that he is a leading contemporary radical critic of liberalism.... The Bittersweet Century...exposes the elitist core of liberal though and practice with a radical critique that focuses on the opposition of liberals and conservatives alike to a genuinely democratic and egalitarian society.... Scintillating in analysis and exhilarating in style." --Journal of Economic Issues."For those willing to give it careful reading and study...The Bittersweet Century will serve as a useful springboard for understanding the role of science and technology in the current public policy environment...." --Perspectives on Political Science."[The Bittersweet Century] is not for mere reading but for studying, underlining, reorganizing the way we think about what is happening today in America.... A towering critique of liberalism by a radical, brilliant author." --Book Reader."'The bittersweet century' of Goldstene's title serves as the leitmotif for a series of short, reflective essays decrying the United States' deviation from a truly egalitarian democratic ethos. Liberalism, Goldstene contends, has foisted on the United States a system of elite rule founded on the superior claims to knowledge of the few and supported by the corporate organization of technology.... Goldstene draws messages of optimism from modern biology (which has undermined the basis for racist and hereditarian thought) and from relativity and quantum physics (which has subverted positivist and privileged claims to knowledge). 'The logic of science,' he concludes, 'results in democracy'--a sweet promise that offsets the for him bitterly elitist impulses of the twentieth-century United States." --American Political Science Review."The Bittersweet Century is the most original and thought-provoking-book to emerge since the publication of John Rawls' Theory of Justice (1971). This reviewer not only finds Goldstene's newest work pregnant with powerful political thought, but he believes it should be recommended heartily for economists, historians, psychologists, and sociologists. All will find it provocative and instructive. Political science can only hope that Goldstene will inspire a renewal of democratic theorizing and that The Bittersweet Century will herald a renaissance of democratic thought." --The Social Science Journal."In his new book, Paul Goldstene replies to criticisms of his widely-dicussed The Collapse of Liberal Empire (1977).... The Bittersweet Century is the sort of book often called 'provocative'.... [It] raises important issues." --The Australian Journal of Politics and History.