Edited by Arthur M. Melzer and Richard M. Zinman - Contributions by Saul Bellow; John Patrick Diggins; Pierre Hassner; Josef Joffe; Tony Judt; Ira Katznelson; Christopher J. Kelly; Adam Michnik; Martha Nussbaum; Thomas A. Pangle; Paul A. Rahe; Jerry Weinb

The editors bring together a wide variety of noted scholars to discuss the characteristics, nature, and role of public thinkers. By looking at scholarly life in the West, this work explores the relationship between thought and action, ideas and events, reason and history.

Chapter 1 Introduction Part 2 THEORY Part 3 The Rise of the Public Intellectual Chapter 4 What is an Intellectual? Chapter 5 A Platonic Perspective on the Idea of the Public Intellectual Chapter 6 The Idea of the Public Intellectual in the Age of the Enlightenment Chapter 7 Rousseau's Critique of the Public Intellectual in the Age of the Enlightenment Chapter 8 The Founding Fathers and the Creation of Public Opinion Part 9 The Public Intellectual in the Twentieth Century Chapter 10 The Changing Role of the Public Intellectual in American History Chapter 11 The Decline of the Public Intellectual and the Rise of the Pundit Chapter 12 The Public Intellectual and the Experience of Totalitarianism Chapter 13 The Peripheral Insider: Raymond Aron and the Wages of Reason Chapter 14 Gray is Beautiful Part 15 PRACTICE Chapter 16 The Professional Scholar as Public Intellectual: Reflections Prompted by Karl Mannheim, Robert K. Merton, and C. Wright Mills Chapter 17 Public Philosophy and International Feminism Chapter 18 Wit Irony Fun Games