The End of Ideology: First Edition

by Daniel Bell

Named by the Times Literary Supplement as one of the 100 most influential books since the end of World War II, The End of Ideology has been a landmark in American social thought, regarded as a classic since its first publication in 1962.

Daniel Bell postulated that the older humanistic ideologies derived from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were exhausted, and that new parochial ideologies would arise. In a new introduction to the year 2000 edition, he argues that with the end of communism, we are seeing a resumption of history, a lifting of the heavy ideological blanket and the return of traditional ethnic and religious conflicts in the many regions of the former socialist states and elsewhere.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, Sociology, History, Nonfiction, Political Science, Theory

501 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1988

About the author

American sociologist, writer, editor, and professor at Harvard University, best known for his contributions to the study of post-industrialism. He has been described as "one of the leading American intellectuals of the postwar era". Bell once described himself as a "socialist in economics, a liberal in politics, and a conservative in culture."
Bell began his professional life as a journalist, being managing editor of The New Leader magazine (1941–1945), labor editor of Fortune (1948–1958), and later, co-editor (with his college friend Irving Kristol) of The Public Interest magazine (1965–1973). In the late 1940s, Bell was an Instructor in the Social Sciences in the College of the University of Chicago. During the 1950s, it was close to the Congress for Cultural Freedom. Subsequently, he taught sociology, first at Columbia (1959–1969) and then at Harvard until his retirement in 1990. Bell also was the visiting Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at Cambridge University in 1987. He served as a member of the President's Commission on Technology in 1964–1965 and as a member of the President's Commission on a National Agenda for the 1980s in 1979.
His most influential books are, The End of Ideology (1960), The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976),[19] and The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973). Two of his books, the End of Ideology and the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, were listed by the Times Literary Supplement as among the 100 most important books in the second half of the twentieth century.

Reviews

[Sean Chick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Anyone declaring the "end of" usually gets to eat humble pie after such declarations. Bell is no different. Although he is right in so far as capitalism was emerging as the ultimate ideology (short shall it reign), he still comes off as narrow minded.

[Andrew]

It's kind of hard for me to read these old American left guys sometimes. Veblen's cool, but on the whole I find most of their arguments to be predicated on some sort of transcendental notion that supersedes all logical argument. Bell seems so lulled in by this millenarian notion that he can't realize how unimportant his moment in time is. Please note, he's a good essayist, and in many of these essays he makes good, thought-provoking, socialist arguments. But don't expect a masterpiece.

[Steven Peterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

In its time, a classic. Time can undermine analyses of the social and political realm as forces move society in different directions. Bell argued that old time ideological frameworks had lost their power and that, thus, we had arrived at the "end of ideology." Perhaps not, as we see a renewal of ideological dispute in the United States and elsewhere. Nonetheles, a book worth reading to get a sense of intellectuals' analyses in the 1960s.

[sologdin · Rating 1 out of 5]

standard philistine thesis that certain currents of thought in the US are 'non-ideological,' to wit: pragmatic technocratic corporatism in the post-WWII era. something of a precursor to fukuyama, and an epilogue to marx, maybe.

[m · Rating 3 out of 5]

Daniel Bell is not a great or concise writer but these essays are loaded with interesting facts and analyses.

[Poung · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is an old book but it seems still relevance to our time.

[Anusha Datar · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this series of essays, Bell uses examples from politics, history, and current (at the time) events to insinuate that existing ideological frameworks were starting to lose their power, bringing forth the outright "end of ideology." From his fiscally liberal and socially conservative perspective, he highlights the decline of the ideas and beliefs dominant during World War II and before and the movements that could follow.

I can see why this book was monumental when it was released. I found that, unsurprisingly, many of the principles and examples in the book remain relevant today. That being said, I found this to not be so different from work from this era that I've read before - it felt like his essays reiterated a lot of existing talking points, and his work was fairly verbose and repetitive.

[Ana Nistal Miguélez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ensayo para reflexionar sobre la ideología, su origen y en la actualidad desde otra perspectiva.

[Ángel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este importante estudio puede considerarse un clásico de la ciencia política, ya que explora importantes temas como la democracia occidental después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, el estado de bienestar y la diferenciación entre la izquierda y la derecha.

[Matthew Matheson]

Argueing the World: (documentary)
Daniel Bell-2
Nathan Glazer
Irving Howe
Irving Kristol

[Tania]

nothing

[Jemera Rone]

too tedious to finish