A passionate, probing collection gathering nearly thirty years of groundbreaking reflection on culture and society alongside four new essays, by one of our most respected essayists and criticsformer Yale English professor and National Book Critics Circle Award-winner William Deresiewicz.
What is the internet doing to us? What is college for? What are the myths and metaphors we live by? These are the questions that William Deresiewicz has been pursuing over the course of his award-winning career.The End of Solitudebrings together more than forty of his finest essays, including four that are published here for the first time.
Ranging widely across the culture, they take up subjects as diverse asMad Menand Harold Bloom, the significance of the hipster, and the purpose of art. Drawing on the past, they ask how we got where we are. Scrutinizing the present, they seek to understand how we can live more mindfully and freely, and they pose two fundamental questions: What does it mean to be an individual, and how can we sustain our individuality in an age of networks and groups?
William Deresiewiczs writing has appeared in the
Atlantic,
Harpers Magazine, the
New York Times, the
American Scholar, and many other publications. He is the recipient of a National Book Critics Circle award for excellence in reviewing and is the
New York Timesbestselling author of
Excellent Sheep,
The Death of the Artist,
and
A Jane Austen Education.
Preface
TECHNOLOGY CULTURE
The End of Solitude
Solitude and Leadership
Faux Friendship
Culture against Culture
The Girl with the High-Speed Connection
The Ghost in the Machine
All in a Dream
HIGHER EDUCATION
The Disadvantages of an Elite Education
The Neoliberal Arts
The Defunding of the American Mind
On Political Correctness
Change Your Mind First: College and the Urge tlăȚ