Atrocities of the Mind: Essays on Violence and Politics in the American Century - Paperback
$25.00
Skip to product information
Atrocities of the Mind: Essays on Violence and Politics in the American Century - Paperback
$25.00
Shipping calculated at checkout.
by Dwight MacDonald (Author), John Summers (Editor), John Summers (Introduction by)
An essential collection of Dwight Macdonald's prophetic essays on politics, art, and violence in twentieth-century America.
What does extreme violence do to human values? Does the concept of collective guilt make sense in assessing responsibility for genocide? Has modern mechanized society forever destroyed the possibility of peaceful resistance through art and civil disobedience? Atrocities of the Mind presents anew Dwight Macdonald, one of America's foremost literary journalists and political activists, grappling with the hard questions of his time--and ours. In this collection, Macdonald writes about major events--the Holocaust, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Gandhi's assassination, the Vietnam War, and social phenomena such as mass shootings, campus protests, and police brutality--with clear-sighted and buoyant prose. He writes incisively about the cinema of Alfred Hitchcock and Roman Polanski, praises Dorothy Day's pacifism, and reports circulating an antiwar petition in the White House Rose Garden. And not without effect: his essay "Our Invisible Poor" is said to have spurred the Johnson administration's War on Poverty. Norman Mailer memorably called Macdonald "a man with whom one might seldom agree but could never disrespect because he always told the truth as he saw the truth--a man therefore of the most incorruptible integrity." In our America, reeling from political violence, Macdonald's truth-telling reminds us how we got here and whom we might still become.Author Biography
Dwight Macdonald (1906-1982) was an American writer, critic, activist, editor of Partisan Review, and founder of Politics. He wrote for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Esquire, and other publications.
John Summers is a historian, the author of Every Fury on Earth, and the editor of four books, including Dwight Macdonald's Masscult and Midcult. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Number of Pages: 352
Dimensions: 0.81 x 8.91 x 6.01 IN
Publication Date: May 27, 2026
Details
This product is crafted with quality materials to ensure durability and performance. Designed with your convenience in mind, it seamlessly fits into your everyday life.
Shipping & Returns
We strive to process and ship all orders in a timely manner, working diligently to ensure that your items are on their way to you as soon as possible.
We are committed to ensuring a positive shopping experience for all our customers. If for any reason you wish to return an item, we invite you to reach out to our team for assistance, and we will evaluate every return request with care and consideration.
Shop The Full Collection
