Roger Scruton Paperback, 304 pages 9781472965219 A devastating critique of New Left thinking In Fools, Frauds and Firebrands, Roger Scruton first surveys and then deconstructs the golden idols of left wing thought from the 1960s to the present day. He dissects the hollow works of Hobsbawm and E. P. Thompson, Galbraith and Dworkin, Sartre and Foucault and exposes the lack of coherence in the works of Althusser, Lacan, Deleuze, Badiou and Žižek. Scruton ponders why the humanities have become so unambiguously aligned to the left, and reveals how fully such thinking has seized the academy in its grasp. In this provocative, compelling and highly entertaining book he explains why empty rhetoric abounds over careful analysis and blatant nonsense over respectable logic, in a shattering demolition of some of today's most fashionable philosophers. Contents1 What is Left?2 Resentment in Britain: Hobsbawm and Thompson3 Disdain in America: Galbraith and Dworkin4 Liberation in France: Sartre and Foucault5 Tedium in Germany: Downhill to Habermas6 Nonsense in Paris: Althusser, Lacan and Deleuze7 Culture Wars Worldwide: The New Left from Gramsci to Said8 The Kraken Wakes: Badiou and Žižek9 What is Right?
