by PaulJohnson (Author)
Do the private practices of intellectuals match the standard of their public principles? How great is their respect for truth? What is their attitude to money? How do they treat their spouses and children - legitimate and illegitimate? How loyal are they to their friends? Rousseau, Shelley, Marx, Ibsen, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Bertrand Russell, Brecht, Sartre, Edmund Wilson, Victor Gollancz, Lillian Hellman, Cyril Connolly, Norman Mailer, Kenneth Tynan and many others are put under the spotlight. With wit and brilliance, Paul Johnson exposes these intellectuals, and questions whether ideas should ever be valued more than individuals.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 400
Edition: 3
Publisher: Phoenix
Published: 06 Apr 2000
ISBN 10: 1842120395
ISBN 13: 9781842120392
Book Overview: Paul Johnson is one of Britain's leading historians and a well-known and provocative journalist As well as his weekly column for the Spectator, Paul Johnson is also a frequent contributor to the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail and newspapers around the world 'An engaging book. Johnson is very good at exposing the inconsistencies and hypocrisies of those who preach the higher good' Peter Ackroyd 'This valuable and entertaining book is a rogue's gallery of adventurers of the mind ' Kingsley Amis