The Ideas Industry: How Pessimists, Partisans, and Plutocrats are Transforming the Marketplace of Ideas
Daniel W. Drezner
Oct 2017 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Adam Grupper
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10 hr 58 min
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About this audiobook
The public intellectual, as a person and ideal, has a long and storied history. Writing in venues like the New Republic and Commentary, such intellectuals were always expected to opine on a broad array of topics, from foreign policy to literature to economics. Yet in recent years a new kind of thinker has supplanted that archetype: the thought leader. Equipped with one big idea, thought leaders focus their energies on TED talks rather than highbrow periodicals.
How did this shift happen? In The Ideas Industry, Daniel W. Drezner points to the roles of political polarization, heightened inequality, and eroding trust in authority as ushering in the change. In contrast to public intellectuals, thought leaders gain fame as single-idea merchants. Their ideas are often laudable and highly ambitious: ending global poverty by 2025, for example. But instead of a class composed of university professors and freelance intellectuals debating in highbrow magazines, thought leaders often work through institutions that are closed to the public. They are more immune to criticism—and in this century, the criticism of public intellectuals also counts for less.
How did this shift happen? In The Ideas Industry, Daniel W. Drezner points to the roles of political polarization, heightened inequality, and eroding trust in authority as ushering in the change. In contrast to public intellectuals, thought leaders gain fame as single-idea merchants. Their ideas are often laudable and highly ambitious: ending global poverty by 2025, for example. But instead of a class composed of university professors and freelance intellectuals debating in highbrow magazines, thought leaders often work through institutions that are closed to the public. They are more immune to criticism—and in this century, the criticism of public intellectuals also counts for less.
The public intellectual, as a person and ideal, has a long and storied history. Writing in venues like the New Republic and Commentary, such intellectuals were always expected to opine on a broad array of topics, from foreign policy to literature to economics. Yet in recent years a new kind of th...
About the author
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at Tufts University and a regular contributor to the Washington Post. In addition to having one of the most heavily trafficked blogs in the world of academia, he is the author of several books, including The System Worked and All Politics Is Global.
A veteran audiobook narrator, Adam Grupper has recorded more than eighty titles and garnered honors from AudioFile magazine, Publishers Weekly, the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences, and the Audio Publishers Association. He has been in eleven Broadway productions, including the acclaimed revival of Fiddler on the Roof.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at Tufts University and a regular contributor to the Washington Post. In addition to having one of the most heavily trafficked blogs in the world of academia, he is the author of several books, including The System Worked and All Politics...
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