Modernity and Its Discontents: Making and Unmaking the Bourgeois from Machiavelli to Bellow

by Steven B. Smith

Book Overview

Steven B. Smith examines the concept of modernity, not as the end product of historical developments but as a state of mind. He explores modernism as a source of both pride and anxiety, suggesting that its most distinctive characteristics are the self-criticisms and doubts that accompany social and political progress. Providing profiles of the modern project's most powerful defenders and critics--from Machiavelli and Spinoza to Saul Bellow and Isaiah...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300240236
• ISBN13: 9780300240238
• Release Date: August 2018
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.1"