Men of Ideas

Lewis A. Coser takes readers from the coffeehouses of 18th-century London to the mass-culture industries of today in search of a definition for the intellectual.

Describing the settings where intellectuals thrive and exploring the nature and contributions of various well-known groups, he discusses the various roles intellectuals play in society and why they matter.

Lewis Coser was a German-American sociologist and the 66th president of the American Sociological Association. He earned his PhD in sociology at Columbia University and founded the sociology department at Brandeis University.

Preface to the First Paperback Edition

xi

(4)

Preface to the Original Edition

xv

Part One. SETTINGS FOR INTELLECTUAL LIFE

3

(132)

1. Introduction

3

(8)

2. The French Rococo Salon

11

(8)

D'Holbach and Helvetius

16

(3)

3. Coffeehouses in Eighteenth-Century London

19

(8)

4. The Royal Society and the Rise of Modern Science

27

(10)

5. The Profession of Letters in Eighteenth-Century England

37

(14)

The Widening Reading Public

38

(3)

Booksellers and Authors

41

(3)

Circulating Libraries

44

(1)

The Commercialization of Literature

45

(6)

6. The Commercialization of Writing: Four Cases from Nineteenth-Century England

51

(20)

Walter Scott

54

(3)

William M. Thackeray

57

(4)

Charles Dickens

61

(4)

George Eliot

65

(6)

7. British Nineteenth-Century Reviews

71

(12)

8. Censorship

83

(16)

Political Censorship: Pre-Revolutionary France

84

(5)

Moral Censorship: The Victorian Era in America

89

(10)

9. The Political Sect: The Saint-Simonians

99

(12)

10. Literary Bohemia: The Early Years of Greenwich Village

111

(10)

11. The Little Magazine: The Masses and The Little Review

121

(14)

The Masses

123

(4)

The Little Review

127

(8)

Part Two. INTELLECTUALS AND THE HOUSE OF POWER

135

(112)

12. Introduction

135

(10)

Intellectuals in Power

136

(2)

Boring from Within

138

(2)

Legitimizing Power

140

(2)

Critics of Power

142

(1)

Salvation Abroad

143

(2)

13. Intellectuals in Power

145

(26)

The Jacobin Intellectuals or the Politics of Virtue

145

(12)

The Bolsheviks: Intellectuals as Professional Revolutionaries

157

(14)

14. Boring from Within

171

(18)

The Fabians: Intelligence Officers without an Army

171

(9)

The Brain Trust Courts Power

180

(9)

15. Legitimizing Power

189

(18)

Napoleon and the Ideologues

189

(8)

Gomulka and the Revisionists

197

(10)

16. Critics of Power

207

(20)

The Abolitionists

207

(8)

The Dreyfusards

215

(12)

17. Salvation Abroad

227

(20)

Rage for Order: The Philosophes' Love Affair with China and Russia

227

(6)

Riding the Wave of the Future in the Thirties

233

(14)

Part Three. THE INTELLECTUAL IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICA

247

(116)

18. Introduction

247

(4)

Intellectual Types and Institutional Settings

249

(2)

19. The Scene and Prospect Before Us: Two Contrasting Perspectives

251

(12)

America as a Bureaucratized Mass Society: The Obsolescence of the Intellectual

252

(4)

America as a Pluralistic Society: Sanguine Prospects for Superior Culture

256

(7)

20. Unattached Intellectuals

263

(12)

21. Academic Intellectuals

275

(20)

The University Today

277

(3)

The University as a Setting for Intellectuals

280

(1)

Career Pressures and the Departmentalization of Knowledge

281

(2)

Time Pressures

283

(1)

Skill Versus Cultivation

284

(1)

The Consultant Role of Academic Men

285

(2)

Research Entrepreneurship

287

(2)

Bureaucratic Impediments

289

(2)

Prospects

291

(4)

22. Scientific Intellectuals

295

(20)

The Professional Role of the Scientist

296

(9)

The New Public Role of the Scientist

305

(6)

The Prospect for Scientific Intellectuals

311

(4)

23. Intellectuals in Washington

315

(10)

The Intellectual as a Civil Servant

315

(10)

The Intellectual as an Ad Hoc Bureaucrat

320

(5)

24. Intellectuals in the Mass-Culture Industries

325

(12)

The Movie Industry

327

(4)

The Weekly Mass-Circulation Magazines

331

(6)

25. Foundations as Gatekeepers of Contemporary Intellectual Life

337

(12)

26. Summing Up

349

(14)

Fragmentation and Diversification

349

(5)

Concentration and Absorption

354

(4)

Absorption, Alienation, or Detached Concern?

358

(5)

INDEX

363

(2)

Subject Index

365

(2)

Name Index

367

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Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials