{ "item_title" : "Reflections on America", "item_author" : [" Claus Offe "], "item_description" : "At a time when so many cracks have emerged within the imaginedcommunity of 'the West', this important new book, by one of theleading social scientists in Europe, examines the intellectualhistory of comparing Europe and the United States. Claus Offeconsiders the perspectives adopted by three of Europe's greatestsocial scientists - Alexis de Tocqueville, Max Weber and Theodor W.Adorno - in their comparative writings on Europe. While traveling, studying and working in the US, all threeconstantly looked back to their European origins, trying todecipher from their American experience what the future may holdfor Europe, be it for better or worse. Alexis de Tocqueville, theFrench aristocrat, observed the functioning of American democracywith a mix of admiration, envy and deep concerns about the fate ofliberty in the 'democratic age'. Max Weber, the German sociologist, reported enthusiastically about the youthful energy he found in theUnited States, which, however, he saw as gradually succumbing tothe stifling tendencies of European bureaucratization. Theodor W.Adorno, the critical theorist and refugee from Nazi Germany, observed with a sense of despair the workings of the American'culture industry' which he equated to the totalitarian experienceof Europe, only to switch to a much more favorable picture upon hisreturn to Germany.Europe and the US are conventionally assumed to share the sametrajectory and develop according to some common pattern of'occidental rationalism', with the observed differences resultingfrom mere lags and relative advances on one side or the other. Inthis insightful book, Offe questions the relevance of this paradigmto transatlantic relations today.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers1.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/74/563/506/0745635067_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "20.75", "online_price" : "20.75", "our_price" : "20.75", "club_price" : "20.75", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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