Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain (Hardcover)

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• This item: Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain by Stefan Collini

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• Common Reading: Critics, Historians, Publics by Stefan Collini

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• Public Moralists: Political Thought and Intellectual Life in Britain 1850-1930 (Clarendon Paperbacks) by Stefan Collini

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Common Reading: Critics, Historians, Publics by Stefan Collini 5.0 out of 5 stars (1)  £23.75

Public Moralists: Political Thought and Intellectual Life in Britain 1850-1930 (Clarendon Paperbacks) by Stefan Collini £23.75

The Ends of Life: Roads to Fulfilment in Early Modern England by Keith Thomas 5.0 out of 5 stars (1)  £14.00

The Morbid Age: Britain Between the Wars by Richard Overy 2.0 out of 5 stars (1)  £17.50

Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time by Clive James 4.7 out of 5 stars (14)  £10.49

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Robert Skidelsky, Prospect
"a rich, subtle and complex book, which is a constant stimulus to thought...full of witty phrases"

Review
Stefan Collini's Absent Minds provided an intriguing analysis of the question of intellectuals in Britian during the twentieth century...a superb, well-writtian book with few discernible flaws...Collini has tackled a complex subject in an imaginative and compelling fashion, and Absent Minds will only enhance his reputation as the leading scholar of British intellectual history. (Michael D. Stevenson russel:the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies )

This is a book in which playfulness and wit interlock with, rather than adorn or relieve, probing analysis and humane seriousness. (Christopher Hilliard, The Historical Journal )

Absent Minds is an intriguing, sometimes illuminating, book written with elegance and elan. (David Stack, The English Historical Review )

..elegant and challenging (Dominic Sandbrook, Telegraph )

..[a]..witty and detailed study (Bernard Richards, Oxford Magazine )

a long book of dazzling short chapters. Richly layered, provocative and very funny. (Roy Foster, Times Literary Supplement. )

...a splendidly challenging book. (Bernard Bergonzi, The Tablet )

..[includes] many striking items of information (David Simpson, London Review of Books )

clever and entertaining revisionist history....Absent Minds brilliantly exemplifies the sort of human, intelligent and accessible critique he so eloquently advocates' (Michael Saler, TLS )

..[a]. .splendid new book... (Timothy Garton Ash, The Guardian )

...[a] magisterial study...Collini is a skilled portraitist and provides us with some judicious, vividly detailed cameos of such figures as Collingwood, T S Eliot, Orwell, A J P Taylor and Freddie Ayer...this magnificently perceptive survey of the British intellectual caste, with a handful of French and American thinkers thrown in for good measure, will prove hard to outstrip as the definitive account of its subject...It is a stylish, finely analytical study... his literary style combines journalism with erudition, in the best manner of the tradition he investigates... it is a superb distillation of several decades of research and reflection....this magnificently perceptive survey of the British intellectual caste, with a handful of French and American thinkers thrown in for good measure, will prove hard to outstrip as the definitive account of its subject. (Terry Eagleton, New Statesman )

Absent Minds is a tour de force by a scholar and critic at the height of his powers (James Wilsdon, Financial Times )

...fascinating...Absent Minds is a provocative and impressive read. (Dominic Sandbrook, The Telegraph )

Stefan Collini promises a panoramic view of British intellectuals in the 20th century...with contemporary disquisitions on 'media studies' and celebrity. Collini is expert at the urbane insertion of a dagger: Should be provocative fun. (Steven Poole, The Guardian )

'Absent Minds is first rate...immensely authoritative' (Winston Fletcher, THES )

a rich, subtle and complex book, which is a constant stimulus to thought...full of witty phrases (Robert Skidelsky, Prospect )

Stefan Collini was arguably the person best placed to write a book as ambitious as this...The book is based on impressive research, and displays, once more, the sharp critical capacities Collini is known for. It cannot be sufficiently stressed that this book should be compulsory reading for anyone interested in the question of intellectuals and intellectual activity in any country, both historically and in the contemporary context. (Historian )

the book is excellent, thoroughly researched, full of unexpectd discussions of half-forgotten names, movements, and periodicals, provoking further study. (Jeremy Tambling, MLR )

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First Sentence
Perhaps the most common assumption about any book announcing 'intellectuals in Britain' as its theme is that it will be short. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index

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1 Review 5 star:  (1) 4 star:    (0) 3 star:    (0) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review 5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)		Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   2 of 2 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Superb study of the question of intellectuals in Britain, 18 Sep 2008 By  William Podmore (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    This review is from: Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain (Paperback) This book by Stefan Collini, Professor of Intellectual History and English Literature at Cambridge University, is a superb discussion of the question of intellectuals in Britain. He questions the idea that intellectuals are uniquely absent or insignificant in Britain. According to this `absence thesis', part of our `national character' is that we are uniquely pragmatic, unintellectual and practical. In a brilliant chapter on George Orwell, Collini notes that Orwell often adopted the manner of a public-school bully and concludes, "he encouraged an undiscriminating hostility to intellectuals as such, and he was then surely guilty of that most unlovely and least defensible of inner contradictions, the anti-intellectualism of the intellectual." Collini rightly questions a class analysis which sees the intelligentsia as a separate social stratum. Unfortunately, he fails to see that intellectuals work for a living (writing is work, as Marx observed) and so are members of the working class. Collini denies that a ruling class exists, but offers no better explanation of how society is run, although he notes `global capitalism's relentless search for profit'. He also observes that the `absence thesis' does express the thought that intelligence, imagination and justice are not Britain's governing principles. He decries `the posturing and self-importance involved in the post-war French intellectuals' prominence in their society'. He is not deriding those French intellectuals who supported, or kept quiet about, the French state's colonial wars against Vietnam and Algeria, but those, like Jean-Paul Sartre, who opposed these wars. Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir (whom Collini never mentions) broke through the censorship to reveal these wars' inevitable crimes. Britain's intellectuals almost all ignored the British state's similar wars against Malaya and Kenya. Collini too ignores all these wars (he only mentions Algeria, just once), which enables him to insult those who worked for peace. He writes of `the unglamorous obligation to try to be realistic in identifying the lesser evil'. As a description of political duties, this is far too vague. Wasn't Sartre realistic in calling for the French to leave Algeria, as they did in the end? Are we only to identify the `lesser evil' among the parliamentary parties? Isn't this making a choice of paint when the house is crumbling? Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this) Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review › See all customer reviews...		Ad feedback   Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews

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