Debating the End of History: The Marketplace, Utopia, and the Fragmentation of Intellectual Life

Description

Why do modern people assume that there will be perpetual economic growth? Because, David W. Noble tells us in this provocative study of cultural criticism, such a utopian conviction is the necessary foundation for bourgeois culture. One can imagine the existence of modern middle classes only as long as the capitalist marketplace is expanding.

David W. Noble, professor emeritus at University of Minnesota, is the author of many influential books including The Progressive Mind, 1890-1917, The End of American History, and Death of a Nation: American Culture and the End of Exceptionalism. David R. Roediger is professor of history and African American studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

"This is a major book by an important American studies scholar who takes a long view of U.S. and transnational history and culture while making important connections to significant contemporary ideas and movements such as neoliberalism and Tea Party politics. David W. Noble makes a compelling case for the continuing significance of the metaphor of two worlds for understanding the neoliberal disorder around us." --Shelley Streeby