Defining the Age

Paul Starr is professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University, founding coeditor of The American Prospect, and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction and the Bancroft Prize in American history. His most recent book is Entrenchment: Wealth, Power, and the Constitution of Democratic Societies (2019).Julian E. Zelizer is the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University. His most recent book is Abraham Joshua Heschel: A Life of Radical Amazement (2021), and he is a political analyst for CNN.com and a contributor to NPR.

• Preface and AcknowledgmentsIntroduction, by Paul Starr and Julian E. ZelizerPart I. Overview1. Remembering Daniel Bell: Two Perspectives, by David A. Bell2. Daniel Bell’s Three-Dimensional Puzzle, by Paul StarrPart II. Politics and Ideology3. Of But Not in the Left: Daniel Bell on Radical Politics, by Michael Kazin4. Daniel Bell and the Radical Right, by Julian E. Zelizer5. The End of Ideology, the Long Nineties, and the History of the Present, by Jan-Werner MüllerPart III. The Post-Industrial Transformation6. “Post-Industrial” versus “Neoliberal”: Rival Definitions of Our Age, by Paul Starr7. Assessing Daniel Bell in the Age of Big Tech, by Margaret O’Mara8. The Post-Industrial University as We Know It: Daniel Bell’s Vision, Today’s Realities, by Steven Brint9. Daniel Bell, Social Forecaster, by Jenny AnderssonPart IV. Capitalism, Culture, and the Public Household10. The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, Then and Now, by Fred Turner11. The Double Bind: Daniel Bell, the Public Household, and Financialization, by Stefan EichList of ContributorsIndex

Defining the Age captures like no other book on Daniel Bell the range of his interests, the reach of his learning, and the drama of the historical moment in which he lived. Anyone interested in Bell and modern social theory will have to read this book.