American Labyrinth

Intellectual History for Complicated Times

Raymond Haberski and Andrew Hartman

Narrated by Marc Szewczyk

Available from Audible

Book published by Cornell University Press

Intellectual history has never been more relevant and more important to public life in the United States. In complicated and confounding times, people look for the principles that drive action and the foundations that support national ideals. American Labyrinth demonstrates the power of intellectual history to illuminate our public life and examine our ideological assumptions.

This volume of essays brings together 19 influential intellectual historians to contribute original thoughts on topics of widespread interest. Raymond Haberski Jr. and Andrew Hartman asked a group of nimble, sharp scholars to respond to a simple question: How might the resources of intellectual history help shed light on contemporary issues with historical resonance? The answers—all rigorous, original, and challenging—are as eclectic in approach and temperament as the authors are different in their interests and methods. Taken together, the essays of American Labyrinth illustrate how intellectual historians, operating in many different registers at once and ranging from the theoretical to the political, can provide telling insights for understanding a public sphere fraught with conflict.

In order to understand why people are ready to fight over cultural symbols and political positions we must have insight into how ideas organize, enliven, and define our lives. Ultimately, as Haberski and Hartman show in this volume, the best route through our contemporary American labyrinth is the path that traces our practical and lived ideas.

Raymond Haberski is Professor of History and Director of American Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. He is the author of five books, including God and War.

Andrew Hartman is Professor of History at Illinois State University. He is the author of two books, most recently, A War for the Soul of America.

REVIEWS:

“American Labyrinth shows us the reasons why US intellectual history has enjoyed such a revival in the last few years. Its contributors make clear why ideas are so important and how they are both grounded in, and enable us to reflect upon, our historical experience. Overall, this lively collection offers shrewd analyses of the rich variety of intellectual life in America, past and present. It should be a necessary work for the fields of History, English and Philosophy.”

—Richard H. King, American and Canadian Studies, University of Nottingham, and author of Arendt and America