|
|
Article: The Metaphysical Club.(Review) (book review)
- Article from:
- Insight on the News
- Article date:
- July 16, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 News World Communications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
The Metaphysical Club
A Story of Ideas in America
Louis Menand
Four American thinkers helped create the modern state, introducing ideas that allowed the U.S. to adapt to changing times while encouraging `liberalism' as a political philosophy.
The Metaphysical Club (Farrar Straus & Giroux, $27, 480 pp), Louis Menand's study of the lives, times and ideas of four American thinkers -- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841-1935), William James (1842-1910), Charles S. Peirce (1838-1914) and John Dewey (1859-1952) -- is a tour de force of historical writing. These four thinkers "are more responsible than any other group for moving American thought into the modern ...