Persuasions and Prejudices : An Informal Compendium of Modern Social Science, 1953-1988

Review essays and statements written for special occasions may reveal as much about the writer as those written about; this is the presumption undergirding this collection of thirty-five years of criticism and commentary by Irving Louis Horowitz. For this volume, he selected his comments on famous, near famous, and infamous sociologists, political scientists, and assorted literary figures in between. Taken as a whole, this volume will surprise and delight readers who are acquainted with Horowitz's other works as well as those who are interested in the people he writes about. The book covers notable social scientists, from Arendt to Zetterberg, and such major figures in between as Becker, Bell, de Jouvenel, Mills, Parsons, Solzhenitsyn, and more than eighty others who have had an effect on the contemporary social and political landscape. Each is critically examined, sometimes positively, other times negatively. Horowitz was a major figure in his own right, and his writing here displays the kind of refreshing frankness experts will expect and the general reader will appreciate. The underlying assumption behind the volume, giving its disparate parts a unified characteristic, is that together these observations on others amount to a general perspective on social science held by the author. Whether his larger ambition is accepted or disputed, there is no doubt that the volume provides a standard against which to measure the literary quality of writing in the world of professional social research.-- Provided by Publisher Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Preface Introductory Essay Part I: Philosophical Antecedents to Social Theory 1 Baendel: Sense and Structure in Social History 2 Diderot: Science and Society in the Enlightenment 3 Dilthey: The Pre-History of the Sociology of Knowledge 4 Durkheim: Staking Present Claims on Past Icons 5 Gentile: On the Social Theories of Fascism 6 Hobbes: On Power and Statecraft 7 Hook: Public Affairs and Private Lives 8 Kahler: History and Society in Retrospect 9 Lewis: Rationalism and Irrationalism in History 10 Machiavelli: Means and Ends in Nationalism 11 Marx: Marxian Myths and Pragmatic Dragons 12 Mill: Utility Theory as Social Theory 13 Natanson: Phenomenological Social Science 14 Oppenheimer: Closed Societies and Open Minds 15 Westfall: Science, Religion and Natural Philosophy Part II: Development and Change 16 Alba: Politics, Labor and Development 17 Banfield: Misanthropism as Conservatism 18 Casanova: Democracy and Development in a One-Party State 19 Davis: Taking Lives and Developing Societies 20 Eckstein: The Rise and Fall of Counter Insurgency 21 Germani: Massification, Mobilization and Modernization 22 Haig: A Naive Sophisticate 23 Hoffmann: Schisms and Chasms in International Affairs 24 Hoover: Reactionary Immortality 25 Johnson: Middle Classes and Militarism in Latin America 26 Kumar: Prophecy and Postindustrial Myths 27 Levy: Modernization as Abstract Expression 28 Molnar: Intellectuals and Social Change 29 Moore: Personal Values and Social Change 30 Muste: Martyrdom and Vietnam 31 Pauker: Isolation, Intervention and World Power 32 Perlmutter: Multinational Parochialism 33 Porter: Power and Change in an Industrial Context 34 Portes: The Politics of Urban Research 35 Redfield: Anthropological Sociology 36 Schmitter: Militarism and Development 37 Smith: Class, Race and Pluralism Part III: Ethnicity and Religiosity 38 Cuddihy: Manners, Civility and Civilization 39 Deutscher: Liquidation or Liberation? 40 Downs: First Amendment Blues 41 Elazar: Community and Polity 42 Fein: Bodies and Souls 43 Glazer: Ethnicity as Experience 44 Heartfield: Documenting the Holocaust 45 Herberg: Eclecticism in Search of an American Theology 46 Kuper: The Politics of Genocide 47 Neusner: Jewish History and American Destinies 48 Sombart: The Jews and Modern Communism 49 Timerman: Jewish Soul on Ice 50 Yanov: Anti-Semitic Linchpins Part IV: Social Research as Ideology and Utopia 51 Becker: Sociological Pragmatism 52 Berelson: Behavioral Science as Ideology 53 Coser: Social Contexts of Thought 54 Crozier: The Rise and Fall of Practically Everything 55 Dahrendorf: Law, Order and the Liberal State 56 Dye: Is There an American Power Elite? 57 Ellul: Bureaucratic Illusions 58 Etzioni: American Virtues / Washington Vices 59 Gerth: Social Psychology in a Dismal Decade 60 Gitlin: Political Troubles and Personal Passions 61 Gouldner: The Warring Sociologists 62 Graña: Culture of Sociology and Sociology of Culture 63 Heilbroner: Is the Future an Extension of the Present? 64 Henry: The Banality of Culture 65 Janowitz: An American Rorschach Test 66 Mills: A Postscript to a Sociological Utopian 67 Myrdal: Personal Values and Social Class 68 Nelson: The Iconoclastic Imagination 69 Neumann: Malevolence and Beneficence in State Power 70 Parsons: Sociological Disinformation 71 Rogow: A Funeral Pyre for America 72 Rose: Political Pluralism and Democratic Power 73 Zetterberg: Sociology for Sale Part V: The Ethical Foundations of Political Life 74 Arendt: Open Societies and Free Minds 75 Aron: Tribune of the Intelligentsia 76 Barnes: Privacy, Ethics and Social Science Research 77 Bell: From Ideological Ends to Moral Beginnings 78 Edel: Is a Science of Ethics Possible? 79 Ginsberg: The Responsibilities of Sociology 80 deJouvenel: The Tragedy of Triumphalism 81 Kelman: The Two Cultures of Policy 82 Lipset: Counterrevolutionary Values or National Interests? 83 Lynd and Lynd: Knowledge for Democracy 84 Solzhenitsyn: Revolution, Retribution and Redemption 85 Sorel: Social Theory as Revolutionary Virtue 86 Talmon: Visions of Revolution and Values of Europe 87 Weizenbaum: Knowledge and Its Values About the Author Index