In this important new work, Martin Halliwell focuses on the tensions between the two dimensions of Reinhold Niebuhr's thought: his political role as a radical social critic and the conservative drift of his religious beliefs. Halliwell concentrates particularly on his attempts to justify the role of the religious critic in a secular age by tracing his thought back to European and American traditions of religious individualism. In order to better examine Niebuhr's philosophy, Halliwell positions him in a series of debates on political, religious, ethical, and cultural themes with other public intellectuals such as John Dewey, Paul Tillich, W. H. Auden, George Kennan, and Martin Luther King, Jr. In doing so, the book reassesses the role of "dialogue" in Reinhold Niebuhr's thought and the important contributions that Reinhold Niebuhr made to twentieth century American culture.
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Focusing on the tensions between the two dimensions of Reinhold Niebuhr's thought, his political role as a radical social critic, and his conservative and private belief in the values of neo-orthodox Christianity, the author positions him in a series of debates on political, religious, ethical, and cultural themes with other eminent intellectuals.
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Introduction: Niebuhr and American Intellectual Culture Part I: The Intellectual Family: Pragmatism, Religion and Ethics, 1910s–1940s Chapter 1: "Half-Truths Set Against Half-Truths": James and Niebuhr Chapter 2: A Certain Blindness to Liberalism: Dewey and Niebuhr Chapter 3: Crossing the Invisible Boundary: Tillich and Niebuhr Chapter 4: "Soldiers in the Same Division": The Niebuhr Brothers Part II: Wider Dialogues: Cultural, National and Political Identity, 1940s–1970s Chapter 5: "Digging About in the Slime": Niebuhr and American Psychoanalysis Chapter 6: The Myths and Dramas of History: Niebuhr and Postwar Culture Chapter 7: "The Achilles' Heel of Democracy": Niebuhr and US Foreign Policy Chapter 8: The New Face of Love: Niebuhr and the Civil Rights Movement Conclusion: Niebuhr and the Search for Leadership
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This is a searching and open-minded analysis of the most original and influential religious thinker in the American Century. Halliwell shows that Niebuhr's flexible, frequently overextended mind was almost constantly shaped by political and social action. Niebuhr shared the limitations of other engaged leftists and liberals, but often boldly broke away from them. Halliwell nobly resists the temptation to reduce Niebuhr's long, unruly career to a formula or a thesis. He shows Niebuhr's genius as it bounced off and was refracted through a range of thinkers and political actors as broad as American culture. In exploring Niebuhr's dialogues with critics and admirers, Halliwell charts American intellectual life with greater depth than most histories achieve.
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780742508415
Publisert
2005-10-13
Utgiver
Vendor
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Vekt
617 gr
Høyde
235 mm
Bredde
165 mm
Dybde
27 mm
Aldersnivå
G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
384

Forfatter

Biographical note

Martin Halliwell is professor of American studies at the University of Leicester. He is the author of four previous books: Romantic Science and the Experience of Self, Modernism and Morality, Critical Humanisms, and Images of Idiocy.