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Bell, Daniel. The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties: with "The resumption
of history in the new century".
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000 (1988, 1961, 1960).
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Table of contents
Abstract
Reviews
Excerpt
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This work first argued that the older humanistic ideologies from the 19th and early 20th centuries were exhausted, and that new parochial ideologies would arise. This 2000 edition argues that there is a resumption of history with the end of communism and the return of traditional conflicts.
"The End of Ideology" has been a landmark in American social thought, regarded as a classic since its first publication in 1962. Daniel Bell postulated that the older humanistic ideologies derived from the 19th and early 20th centuries were exhausted, and that new parochial ideologies would arise. In a new introduction to the year 2000 edition, he argues that with the end of communism, we are seeing a resumption of history, a lifting of the heavy ideological blanket and the return of traditional ethnic and religious conflicts in the many regions of the former socialist states and elsewhere.
First published in 1960, just as America hovered on the brink of astounding social changes, this essay collection could hardly be expected to remain pertinent. But Bell's take on American political thought was prescient, and his essays on labor, socialism, and Marxism continue to edify. The book remains a seminal text in the development of what has been called ¡®endism': the notion that history and ideology have come to an end thanks to the twin triumphs of Western democratic politics and the capitalism.
Left-wing critics at the time attacked The End of Ideology for ignoring Third World realities. These critics maintained that endism was itself an ideology that was fundamentally beholden to Western political liberalism, and thus primarily concerned with maintaining the status quo and discouraging the view that any opposition was possible.
Named by the Times Literary Supplement as one of the 100 most influential books since the end of World War II, The End of Ideology has been a landmark in American social thought, regarded as a classic since its first publication in 1962. Daniel Bell postulated that the older humanistic ideologies derived from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were exhausted, and that new parochial ideologies would arise. In a new introduction to the year 2000 edition, he argues that with the end of communism, we are seeing a resumption of history, a lifting of the heavy ideological blanket and the return of traditional ethnic and religious conflicts in the many regions of the former socialist states and elsewhere.
http://journalweb.journalism.fas.nyu.edu/portfolio/books/book175.html
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/BELINY.html
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