Professor Steven Smith’s new book, Modernity and Its Discontents, now available.

July 20, 2016

Professor Steven Smith’s newest book, Modernity and Its Discontents, is now available.

In this new publication, Steven B. Smith examines the concept of modernity, not as the end product of historical developments but as a state of mind. He explores modernism as a source of both pride and anxiety, suggesting that its most distinctive characteristics are the self-criticisms and doubts that accompany social and political progress. Providing profiles of the modern project’s most powerful defenders and critics—from Machiavelli and Spinoza to Saul Bellow and Isaiah Berlin—this provocative work of philosophy and political science offers a novel perspective on what it means to be modern and why discontent and sometimes radical rejection are its inevitable by-products.

You can read more about the book and view the book’s introductory chapter here.