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The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy

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Wait time: About 4 weeks
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 4 weeks

"[A] passionate, compelling, and disturbing argument that the ills of democracy in the United States today arise from the default of its elites." —John Gray, New York Times Book Review (front-page review)

In a front-page review in the Washington Post Book World, John Judis wrote: "Political analysts have been poring over exit polls and precinct-level votes to gauge the meaning of last November's election, but they would probably better employ their time reading the late Christopher Lasch's book." And in the National Review, Robert Bork says The Revolt of the Elites "ranges provocatively [and] insightfully."

Controversy has raged around Lasch's targeted attack on the elites, their loss of moral values, and their abandonment of the middle class and poor, for he sets up the media and educational institutions as a large source of the problem. In this spirited work, Lasch calls out for a return to community, schools that teach history not self-esteem, and a return to morality and even the teachings of religion. He does this in a nonpartisan manner, looking to the lessons of American history, and castigating those in power for the ever-widening gap between the economic classes, which has created a crisis in American society. The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy is riveting social commentary.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 2, 1995
      The title (its play on Jose Ortega y Gasset's The Revolt of the Masses, notwithstanding) misserves this collection of essays, for Lasch's criticism that the elites have become cosmopolites in a global marketplace that disdains loyalty to locale is only one aspect of the crises the late author defines. Myriad factors in concert, he shows, including multiculturism, entitlements, mobility, secularization, our therapeutic culture and the professionalization of knowledge, have unsettled Americans' frame of reference. ``Common standards are absolutely indispensable to a democratic society,'' stresses Lasch (The Culture of Narcissism), standards he says we have lost, like the work ethic, individual responsibility, self-restraint and civility. In these essays, some of which were previously published in scholarly journals, Lasch is so encompassing, arguing with such an array of received wisdom-Horace Mann, John Dewey, et al.-that the book is too dense, its focus blurred rather than clarified by its scattershot range.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 15, 1996
      Cultural critic Lasch, who passed away before this book was published, argues that American democracy is withering in the hands of professional and managerial elites who lack a sense of social and civic values.

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