Description: Fowler interprets the writings of public intellectuals like Robert Bellah, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Michael Walzer, William Bennett, Seymour Martin Lipset, William Galston, and others, as well as survey data of American political attitudes, to spotlight the oft-ignored divide between citizens and high-profile commentators, whose contentious debates are mistakenly assumed to reflect countrywide rifts.
Brief description: Robert Booth Fowler is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he taught from 1967 until his retirement in 2002. His books include The Dance with Community: The Contemporary Debate in American Political Thought and Unconventional Partners: Religion and American Liberal Culture.
Review Quotes:
"Enduring Liberalism reflects Robert Booth Fowler's very personal combination of erudition, subtlety, and good judgment. I think his basic thesis--that liberalism, largely rejected as a public philosophy by intellectuals, has been triumphant in private life--is not only accurate but decisively important in contemporary politics. This is a needed book."--Wilson Carey McWilliams, author of The Idea of Fraternity in America
"Fowler's scholarship is vast and takes us into areas political theorists do not often explore, including mass public opinion. His writing is lucid and always fair, and the bibliography alone is worth the admission price. Some of his positions will be controversial, but this is a book that should be read by anyone concerned with contemporary American thought."--James P. Young, author of Reconsidering American Liberalism: The Troubled Odyssey of the Liberal Idea