John Dewey and American Democracy
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- USD 13.99
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- USD 13.99
Descripción editorial
Over a career spanning American history from the 1880s to the 1950s, John Dewey sought not only to forge a persuasive argument for his conviction that "democracy is freedom" but also to realize his democratic ideals through political activism. Widely considered modern America's most important philosopher, Dewey made his views known both through his writings and through such controversial episodes as his leadership of educational reform at the turn of the century; his support of American intervention in World War I and his leading role in the Outlawry of War movement after the war; and his participation in both radical and anti-communist politics in the 1930s and 40s. Robert B. Westbrook reconstructs the evolution of Dewey's thought and practice in this masterful intellectual biography, combining readings of his major works with an engaging account of key chapters in his activism. Westbrook pays particular attention to the impact upon Dewey of conversations and debates with contemporaries from William James and Reinhold Niebuhr to Jane Addams and Leon Trotsky. Countering prevailing interpretations of Dewey's contribution to the ideology of American liberalism, he discovers a more unorthodox Dewey—a deviant within the liberal community who was steadily radicalized by his profound faith in participatory democracy. Anyone concerned with the nature of democracy and the future of liberalism in America—including educators, moral and social philosophers, social scientists, political theorists, and intellectual and cultural historians—will find John Dewey and American Democracy indispensable reading.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Highly regarded but largely unread today, Dewey is generally considered a pragmatist in the mainstream of American liberalism. This exciting portrait of the philosopher as an advocate of participatory democracy and a political activist presents him as a more radical voice than is generally assumed. Although the anti-Stalinist thinker cared little for Marx and was quick to see the repressive nature of Soviet collectivism, he considered himself a democratic socialist in the 1920s and '30s, and questioned corporate capitalism's capacity to promote democratic values. Dewey often is blamed for ``aimless'' progressive education, but Westbrook, a historian at the University of Rochester, argues that his actual impact on U.S. schools was limited, and examines Dewey's vision of the school as a laboratory fostering social, cooperative impulses instead of competitive, selfish individualism. This study, intellectual biography of the highest order, reevaluates Dewey's thought as a signpost for the revitalization of democracy. Photos.