THE ACCIDENTAL CENTURY

by Michael Harrington ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 23, 1965

Michael Harrington is a well-known social critic and author of The Other America. In this brilliant and breezy critique of some of the primary ideas of western civilization he attempts to show that out of decadence can arise a new hope for the spiritual and economic betterment of mankind. He calls the twentieth century the ""accidental century"" because of the nature of the technological and philosophical transformations which have come about, largely, he says, in an unconscious and almost casual way. For the literary purposes of his study of this all pervasive decadence he concentrates on a number of 19th century European philosophical writers who, even at their most aesthetically divergent, developed their art in an atmosphere of decadence and doom -- Mann, Proust, Joyce, Baudelaire, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche. And he demonstrates how the thought of Marx, Freud, Spengler, Weber, Camus and some present-day theorists attempted to deal with the existential crises arising from increasing collectivization. Harrington contends that though our time is the era of mass man and a system of bureaucracies (brought about, he feels, by the various stages of capitalism) that the new technology and the very real possibility of abundance for all can be a liberating force rather than the ""Brave New World"" the doomsayers have been predicting. But it will be necessary for thought to keep pace with technology. In other words, the ""accidental revolution must be made conscious and democratic."" Harrington's book is a highly readable one and considering the breadth of his material something of a tour de force. But the contrast between the grandness of his generalities and the prosaicness of his specific recommendations (in American education and housing, for example) is an incongruity which he himself appreciates. Still, one must begin somewhere. The very real service performed by his book is that it affirms the necessity for coming to grips with the new kind of life which is already upon us.

Pub Date: Aug. 23, 1965

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1965

Categories: NONFICTION