Reviews for The Critical Reception Of Emerson

The average rating for The Critical Reception Of Emerson based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-12-28 00:00:00 Johnny Alexander "The cold war containment metaphor was not simply an expression of foreign policy, or domestic ideology, but a figure for the impossible incoherence of masculine autonomy. The power and mobility of the this metaphor of containment were equal only to the power and elasticity of the metaphor of intrusion -- the enemy within -- which conveyed the uncanny experience of finding one's borders already violated. The impossible purity of the internal space meant the perpetual breakdown and failure of the containment project." (xviii) "This shift toward self-disclosure presents the mirror side of the 'death of privacy' debate: pronounced anxieties about the emerging culture of confession." (19) "An emphasis on national context has obscured the extent to which so-called American norms of privacy were forged in a more specific local context: Boston." (42) "In other words, the constitutional right to privacy represents a paradox: it both refused the logic of containment, which justified the intrusion into private life to protect that same privacy, and extended its logic by resting the right to privacy on the exceptional idealization of the home." (80)

Review # 2 was written on 2020-03-29 00:00:00 Marc Tustin I'm glad I picked this book up as I'm interested in learning more about Lincoln outside of his extremely well documented presidency. Learning more about his self-education and what writers deeply influenced him, particularly to the point where he would frequently quote them in both formal and informal speech, was incredibly useful. However, I found the book itself to be rather a slog. Mr. Kaplan's writing often seems designed to be inaccessible, taking linguistic perambulations so convoluted as to rival those of the historical personage which he is so assiduously attempting to educate his willing readership on. ... if you get my meaning. I was also rather disappointed at how little of Lincoln's writing actually appears in the book. There are no complete transcriptions, but only short excerpts. I had hoped to get a better sense of how Lincoln wrote, especially at different stages of his life. Sadly, I was disappointed on that front. In the end, it's a useful book if you're looking to learn more about Lincoln before the Civil War, but don't expect an engaging read or extensive samples of his writing.