PROGRESSIVE INTELLECTUALS AND THE DILEMMAS OF DEMOCRATIC COMMITMENT

How to lead the people and be one of them? What is a democratic intellectual to do? This long-standing dilemma for the progressive intellectual, how to bridge the world of educated opinion and that of the working masses, is the focus of Leon Fink's penetrating book, the first social history of the progressive thinker caught in the middle of American political culture. I read Progressive Intellectuals and the Dilemmas of Democratic Commitment with consuming interest. Fink writes clearly and even colloquially; exhibits an impressive command of ideology; and is a deft portraitist.