Bertrand Russell: A Political Life PDF
Preview Bertrand Russell: A Political Life
FPT my Three passions have governed life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. This major book grapples with the third of Bertrand Russell’s great passions, casting an entirely new light on one of the seminal in- tellectuals of the twentieth century. Russell, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Lit- erature in 1950, was ninety-seven when he died in 1969- His career defies summary analysis; his life was much too long and his activities too various. He was famous as a logician and mathematician, and later as a mischievous sage. One ofthe most influential opponents of the First World War, Russell became fifty years later one of the most prominent critics of American involvement in Vietnam. Alan Ryan challenges Russell’s own belief that his politics had nothing to do with his philosophy, and argues that by seek- ing to influence a mass audience in an age when aristocratic birth alone would no longer gain him a hearing, Russell embodied the tragedy of an intellectual class and an intel- lectual style. In Ryan’s view, Russell’s un- certainty whether to be sage or entertainer, politician or gadfly, was partly tempera- mental, but also partly a response to the di- lemmas that face any politically engaged intellectual in the twentieth century. Concentrating on Russell’s activities as a polemicist, agitator, educator, and popular- izer, Ryan traces the evolution of Russell’s moral philosophy, beginning with his fervid opposition to the Great War. Much of Rus- sell’s early writing centered on religion, but the Russian Revolution prompted him to consider the problems inherent in a “scien- tific” reconstruction of society, leading to his {continued on back flap) R00b^fl Ryan, Alan. B 1649 R94 Bertrand Russell . R93 1988 © THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO. r Bertrand Russell For Kate and Sadie ALAN RYAN Bertrand Russell A Political Life SOCIAL SCIENCE & HISTORY DIVISION EDUCATION & PHILOSOPHY SECTION WANG NEW YORK HILL AND llO) • A division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux © Copyright 1988 by Alan Ryan All rights reserved Published simultaneously in Canada by Collins Publishers, Toronto First published by Penguin Books, London, 1988 First American edition, 1988 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ryan, Alan. Bertrand Russell: a political life. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Russ—ell, Bertrand, 1872—1970. 2. Russell, Bertrand V—iews on —political science. 3. Political science History 20th century. 1. Title. B1649.R94R93 1988 320.5'092'4 [B] 88-6461 CONTENTS Preface vii a one: Liberal Upbringing i TWO: Religion, Ethics, and Liberal Politics 21 three: At War with War 55 four: An Ambivalent Socialist 81 five: Education for Utopia 103 six: Peace, Power and Democracy 124 seven: The New Voltaire? 156 eight: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age 172 Notes 207 A Note on Sources and References 218 Index 223 SOCIAL SCIENCE S HISTORY DIVISION EDUCATION 0 PHILOSOPHV SECTION Digitized by the Internet Archive 2017 with funding from in China-America Digital Academic Library (CADAL) https://archive.org/details/bertrandrussellpOOryan
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