On The Contrary: Articles Of Belief, 1946-1961
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Good
At the height of the postwar American cultural renaissance, Mary McCarthy positioned herself as one of its sharpest and most uncompromising voices — and On the Contrary: Articles of Belief, 1946–1961 stands as the definitive testament to that legacy. This landmark collection assembles her most incisive critical essays written over fifteen years, in which she argues passionately and brilliantly against conformity, intellectual complacency, and the comfortable falsehoods of mid-century American life, tackling subjects ranging from literature and theatre to politics, feminism, and the nature of fiction itself. McCarthy's prose style is a weapon of precision — witty, elegant, and devastatingly direct — and this volume showcases her remarkable ability to dissect the assumptions of her era with the cool authority of a surgeon and the conviction of a moralist. As a literary critic and public intellectual, she holds her contemporaries to an exacting standard, and her refusal to flatter either the left or the right earned her both admirers and fierce enemies. Readers who believe they understand the intellectual landscape of postwar America will find their certainties quietly — and thrillingly — dismantled.
Author: Mary Mccarthy
Format: Hardback
Genre: Essays
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Good
At the height of the postwar American cultural renaissance, Mary McCarthy positioned herself as one of its sharpest and most uncompromising voices — and On the Contrary: Articles of Belief, 1946–1961 stands as the definitive testament to that legacy. This landmark collection assembles her most incisive critical essays written over fifteen years, in which she argues passionately and brilliantly against conformity, intellectual complacency, and the comfortable falsehoods of mid-century American life, tackling subjects ranging from literature and theatre to politics, feminism, and the nature of fiction itself. McCarthy's prose style is a weapon of precision — witty, elegant, and devastatingly direct — and this volume showcases her remarkable ability to dissect the assumptions of her era with the cool authority of a surgeon and the conviction of a moralist. As a literary critic and public intellectual, she holds her contemporaries to an exacting standard, and her refusal to flatter either the left or the right earned her both admirers and fierce enemies. Readers who believe they understand the intellectual landscape of postwar America will find their certainties quietly — and thrillingly — dismantled.