John Dewey and American Democracy

By Robert B. Westbrook

Book Overview

'Far and away the best book on (Dewey) yet. Westbrook's intellectual biography...is scholarship at its finest--a very unusual combination of vast learning, dialectical acuity and literary skill....This book will do a great deal to make Dewey more available and plausible, and to help his writings shape the imagination of a new generation of Americans.'--Richard Rorty, New Leader

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801425603
• ISBN13: 9780801425608
• Release Date: May 1991
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Length: 592 Pages
• Weight: 2.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Great Book

I don't think there is a better introduction to John Dewey available. This great book traces the intellectual development of every major aspect of Dewey's thought in thoughtful detail - his metaphysics, his psychology, his thought on education and democracy, his aesthetic theory. It gives a reader a full overview of Dewey's thought in their historical and intellectual context and leaves him with a sense of the greatness (and present relevance) of Dewey as a thinker. Ive gone on to read several of Dewey's works since because of the interest stirred by this book. I would get a copy soon before it goes out of print

Much more than a biography

Robert Westbrook's intellectual biography is one of the very best studies on Dewey's life and work. In my view, it's more balanced and carefully researched than Alan Ryan's "John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism", the most obvious competing book. What Westbrook achieves is a happy combination of historical research and insightful theoretical analysis. And that's what any intellectual biography is all about, right? In a nutshell: this book is definitely worth buying if you are interested in expanding your knowledge on Dewey.