Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky, (Paperback)

from AstonishingChristina

I'm giving this title 3 stars, not because it isn't a good read -- it's very lively and entertaining. I'm just not sure why Paul Johnson wrote it, unless he had a lot of material left over from other books and wanted to work it up into something. That famous writers and thinkers down through the ...

from kerns222

Can one invalidate ideas by pointing out the inconsistencies between the ideas and the lives of the famous philosophers/writers/thinkers with which the ideas are associated ? Paul Johnson believes this is so. You learn about our cultural heros/icons: all their sexual shadows, vanities, obsessive ...

from lauriebrown54

A quick look through the table of contents shows that all the intellectuals Johnson writes of are leftist leaning. I thought this odd; his definition of 'intellectual' is one who thinks they can refashion the rules of life out of his own head and one who puts ideas before people. Surely not all w...

from ProgWizardry

Awesome and honest depictions of many flawed people. Includes the most shattering and best toppling of Marxism and Karl Marx that I have ever read.

from KirkLowery

Just look at their own lives and ask yourself: are these people competent to run my life after they've so thoroughly ruined their own? This is Johnson's thesis, especially as it applies to the credibility of their ideas in making legislative and social justice decisions.