Half Way Revolution
Investigation and Crisis in the Work of Henry Adams, William James and Gertrude Stein
Clive Bush(Author)
Yale University Press
Published on 1. April 1991
Book
Hardback
520 pages
978-0-300-04729-5 (ISBN)
Description
"Halfway to Revolution" is a cultural portrait of possibly the most important American literary epoch, that of the years between 1865 and 1945, focusing on the work and lives of three of its central personalities - Henry Adams, William James and Gertrude Stein. The featured writers are treated as representative of certain bodies of knowledge and critical thinking about that knowledge - history, science, and literature - within which can be detected the deep changes and crises of form and content which characterize "modern thought". The major development Bush traces is derived from Hannah Arendt: the shift from "politics" to "society" as the key critical concept through which the world of artists and thinkers may be undrestood in this period. Adams in regard to history, James in regard to science, and Stein in regard to literature is each shown in conflict and confrontation with their respective disciplines, pushing against ethical and epistemological frontiers. In this book Bush links changes in thinking to a "real" history of social, economic and political life, incorporating biography and socio-political analysis.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
notes, bibliography, index
Dimensions
Height: 40 mm
Width: 58 mm
Weight
920 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-300-04729-5 (9780300047295)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Content
Part 1 Henry Adams - towards the social world: opening the field; from hero to social type; a poetics of social hegemony; the arts of transition - "The Education of Henry Adams". Part 2 A metaphysics in reserve - William James and some dilemmas of the liberal centre: Adams and James; William James - the self and politics; America and Europe - locations of sensations and healthy states; philosophizing a social pathology - Agassiz, Darwin, Adams, James; "The Principles of Psychology"; war and peace in the global psyche. Part 3 Beyond the "Fourth Natural Kingdom": Gertrude Stein and the legitimation of society; indices for an approach to Stein - language in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; "How To Write"; decline in the West - Gertrude Stein's "Making of Americans"; a world made of stories; picking up the pieces - an open conclusion.