Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #613879 in Books
• Published on: 1999-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Review
"Promises to become something of a sociological classic".

-- Saturday Review Syndicate

Synopsis
Two hilarious essays by the author of The Right Stuff show the white liberal establishment confronting the new subculture, with humorous and unexpected results. Reprint.

Customer Reviews

The Pop-Sociologist's smashing take on race in the late 60's
These are two long essays dealing with Race in America in the late 1960's. Radical Chic is the more famous of the two. Imagine the scene as Leonard Bernstien and his wife throw a cocktail party in their posh Manhattan Apartment with members of the Black Panther Party as the guests of honor. Wolfe was present at this strange event and offers a play by play of how Radical became all the Chic in the New York social scene...briefly. Bernstien's reputation received national tarnish, and Wolfe explains it all in his witty and insightful style. The book takes a snapshot of the late 60's and Wolfe deconstructs it to explain:White Guilt, New York Society, Zeitgeist, Media Frenzy and other assorted Social-Pop phenomena. Radical Chic is a fun read and will explain a lot about how the better half understood the radicalism of the 60's. I actually prefer the lesser known Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers. Anyone who has ever been involved in interest group politics will howl with laughter as angry minority youths confront pasty white bureaucrats in Oakland in the late 60's. This essay doesn't have the celebrity glamour of Radical Chic, but a lot more people have worked on local race and diversity issues than have made the Manhattan scene with Lenny Bernstien and the like. This essay really explains the purest democratization that was the result of the radical politics of the 60's.