The Intellectual in Mass Society

This is an exciting book—though not at all the book its title seems to promise. “The New Radicalism” is a phrase woefully ill-suited to characterize so diverse and bizarre a cast of characters as Jane Addams, Randolph Bourne, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Colonel Edward M. House, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and Norman Mailer. Mr. Lasch uses “liberalism” and “radicalism” interchangeably, on the curious grounds that “in the heyday of the new radicalism, men of advanced social opinions had used the terms ‘socialism,’ ‘radicalism,’ ‘liberalism,’ and ‘progressivism’ with a certain disregard of their various shades of meaning.” He is interested not in radicalis...