Confronting the Crisis: Writings of Paul Piccone

Confronting the Crisis gathers together for the first time the full range of Paul Piccone's best writings from Telos. This anthology traces a compelling intellectual journey, while providing important commentary on the major contemporary issues. It covers the progress of both Piccone's thinking and the journal's project, beginning with early investigations into phenomenology and Marxism, as well as pioneering studies of Critical Theory and "artificial negativity." It includes far-sighted analyses of new developments, such as the rise of the New Class and the decline of traditional divisions between Left and Right, and it leads eventually to a consideration of the political possibilities of federalism and a reinvigorated populism. The title of this collection refers to Edmund Husserl's last major work, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, from which the title of the journal, Telos, also originated. The loss of the subject of history, i.e., the philosophical-historical idea or teleological sense of European humanity, was the "crisis" that concerned Husserl, and that Piccone examined in all its ramifications. He confronted it with a unique passion and a rare intellect. The results make for absorbing reading.

Praise for Confronting the Crisis
"This collection of essays by Paul Piccone documents a seismic shift in understanding philosophy and sociology after 1968. Often polemical, humorous, and hard-edged, these writings are a testament to a passionate intellect."
--Robert D'Amico, Professor of Philosophy, University of Florida

"During the transition from modernism to postmodernism, from industrial capitalism to information societies and globalization, Piccone brought his vigorous intelligence to bear on the new social formations with insight and compassion. His contributions were a breath of fresh air in an intellectual world too often dominated by orthodoxies of correctness and academies of caution."
--Russell A. Berman, Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities, Stanford University

"Whether it is the limits of Western Marxism, the advent of a new geopolitics, the collapse of state socialism, the fragmentation of nation-states, the revitalization of traditional faith, the failure of research universities, or the trap of contrived multiculturalism, Piccone's writings rarely fail to be engaging, often prove enraging, and continue to be rewarding."
--Tim Luke, University Distinguished Professor, Department of Political Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

"Paul Piccone emerged as one of America's most brilliant social critics during the upheavals of 1968 and the genesis of the New Left. At a time when young radicals made a fetish of oppositional action, he called for serious theoretical reflection. When engagement and activism later gave way to conformist politics and support for bureaucratically steered social programs, Piccone posed populist and federalist alternatives in order to reignite radical opposition based on self-directed communities."
--Franklin Hugh Adler, De Witt Wallace Professor of Political Science, Macalester College

"Paul Piccone was a force of nature. He was a man whose considerable intellect was matched by the warmth and ebullience of his engaging personality. Together they made him an important influence in American intellectual life."
--Fred Siegel, Professor of History, Cooper Union