Overview

Shifting Terrain places contemporary political, economic, and social questions in long-range historical context. An essay on the new American imperialism is set against one that considers enduring lessons from Thucydides on the hubris of empire. The deep Lockean liberal structure of American politics is treated, along with a case history of the labor movement. Essays on child labor, hunger and poverty explore topics in world political economy as it affects the most dispossessed.

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9780820486024

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Reviews

Glenn Perusek brings a deep appreciation of critical theory together with a hardnosed practical sense of political action. Like Hannah Arendt, Perusek has an exemplary grasp of the open-endedness of collective action, recognizing its creative potential while acknowledging the need to understand social movements within the context of structural analysis. (Betsy Taylor, Visiting Scholar, Department of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University) 'Shifting Terrain' combines work of great theoretical sophistication with political analysis of major public issues. The theoretical work utilizes philosophical resources from Heidegger and Wittgenstein to highlight aspects of political culture that elude positivist methods of analysis, namely the importance of moods and frameworks in the interpretation of concrete political situations and the role of political leaders in providing reinterpretations that alter moods and change frames. The political analysis enacts the theoretical lessons by reframing current debates about labor, poverty, and post-invasion Iraq in an effort to alter the current pessimistic mood of those of us on the political left. (Adam Lutzker, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Michigan-Flint) Glenn Perusek writes at the intersection of urgent scholarly debates over citizenship, liberalism, social class, and globalization. This timely collection presents his thoughtful essays on topics ranging from child labor and hunger to Thucydides and U.S. intervention in Iraq. Perusek writes not only for the academic specialist but for the general reader who is interested in how political analysis can inform political action. (Kent Worcester, Chair, Division of the Social Sciences, Marymount Manhattan College, New York)

« 'Shifting Terrain' combines work of great theoretical sophistication with political analysis of major public issues. The theoretical work utilizes philosophical resources from Heidegger and Wittgenstein to highlight aspects of political culture that elude positivist methods of analysis, namely the importance of moods and frameworks in the interpretation of concrete political situations and the role of political leaders in providing reinterpretations that alter moods and change frames. The political analysis enacts the theoretical lessons by reframing current debates about labor, poverty, and post-invasion Iraq in an effort to alter the current pessimistic mood of those of us on the political left. -- Adam Lutzker

Author Information

The Author: Glenn Perusek has written widely on political sociology, political economy, and political theory. He is co-editor of Trade Union Politics: American Unions and Economic Change, 1960s-1990s (1995) and Depth of Field: Stanley Kubrick, Film and the Uses of History (2006). A graduate of Kent State University, he earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago.

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