Front cover image for The revolt of the elites : and the betrayal of democracy

The revolt of the elites : and the betrayal of democracy

"[A] passionate, compelling, and disturbing argument that the ills of democracy in the United States today arise from the default of its elites." —John Gray, New York Times Book Review (front-page review)
Print Book, English, 1996
W.W. Norton, New York, 1996
x, 276 p. ; 21 cm
9780393313710, 9780393036992, 0393313719, 0393036995
970507405
Introduction : The democratic malaise
The revolt of the elites
Opportunity in the promised land : social mobility or the democratization of competence?
Does democracy deserve to survive?
Communitarianism or populism? The ethic of compassion and the ethic of respect
Conversation and the civic arts
Racial politics in New York : the attack on common standards
The common schools : Horace Mann and the assault on imagination
The lost art of argument
Academic pseudo-radicalism : the charade of "Subversion"
The abolition of shame
Philip Rieff and the religion of culture
The soul of man under secularism