The Expanded Edition of my Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault is scheduled for release mid-August in both hardcover and Kindle versions.
The first edition did well (for a philosophy book), going through two hardcover and nine softcover printings. The expanded edition includes the original text, though with many new footnotes and two additional, previously published essays of mine, Free Speech and Postmodernism and From Modern to Postmodern Art: Why Art Became Ugly.
The scholarly reviews of the first edition were mostly very kind. Excerpts from them can be seen in the book’s brochure, and links to the full reviews can be found toward the bottom of my Explaining Postmodernism page. As well, the Amazon page for the first edition has a lively debate over the book’s merits or demerits. Thanks to all who have posted there.
Greatly appreciate this very readable exposition, by a rational mind heroically treading where others become repulsed and confused. Makes understanding this opaque intellectual jungle enjoyable.
Informative – even essential – for understanding 20th century culture, its unraveling, and continuing influences. Highly recommended.
The essay “Modern to Postmodern Art: Why Art Became Ugly” is worth the price alone.
Thanks.
I appreciate that very much, Jack. Thanks for the praise.
Hello Stephen, congratulations on the success of your book, did you manage to fit into the revised edition anything about the Popper/Bartley “non-justificationist” approach to counter the weakness in Western philosophy that the POMOs have exploited?
Adding to that comment, I have been making a study of introductory and also “state of the art” philosophy books over the last few decades and it seems that Bartley has no profile at all. The standard treatment of Popper has evolved from a period up to the 1990s when his ideas were mentioned (and mostly misrepresented) as a passing phase between positivism and the present. Now he is mostly left out of account altogether. Especially in North America!
Deirdre McCloskey is an excellent example of the casual treatment of Popper’s ideas.
http://www.criticalrationalism.net/2011/05/28/deirdre-mcclosky-on-popper-and-rhetoric/
This book is on my short list of the best things anybody ever wrote, so it has been one of my favorite gifts to give friends and family. But being out of print drove the price sky high–a copy of the hardcover edition on Amazon.com was recently listed for $1,000, and the softcover edition listed for hundreds. For me, it would have been enough merely to have come back into print, and so I am thrilled to learn that there will be a new and expanded edition! I’ve already pre-ordered a copy!
Thanks much for that, Eric. Much appreciated.
Dear Prof. Hicks: I’ve read the .pdf version of the first edition of your book “Explaining Postmodernism” with greatest interest and found it extraordinary. Now I want to buy from Amazon the newest version but feel a little reluctant to do so until I receive your reply to the following question. The first edition ends somewhat disappointingly since it mentions that “(the Enlightment) articulated and defended (the premises opposite those of postmodernism) them incompletely”. This made me wonder, since you mention Ayn Rand several times, if you read her “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology,” where she provided all the necessary and required proofs, for it seems that you didn’t take this book into consideration. Have you done so for the latest edition? Then your book would have a complete and perfect ending. I wonder if David Kelley called your attention to it. Please let me know your answer for it will give me the basis to decide the purchase of your book’s latest edition.
With best regards, Manfred F. Schieder
Hi Manfred:
My goal with EP was only to explain pomo, not to refute it or to provide the antidote. Works taking on those additional projects would, I agree, be valuable, and I agree that Rand’s theory of concepts is an essential part of the full response to pomo.
The latest edition adds two essays of mine on pomo themes, one on art and one on free speech.
Thanks for your comment.
Best,
Stephen
Hi Stephen, I purchased a kindle copy of your book recently and have, like most people, found it a really interesting and enlightening read. Your objective assessment of postmodernism and its relationship to Marxism (and its spawn) underlines why there is a continued need to resist the seductive yet ultimately destructive ideologies that weep from this festering political ruse. Your book is most important and I therefore wish to add a hardcopy edition to my library. But where can I get a copy that won’t break my bank? Amazon is selling it for up to $150.00! Is this a Marxist plot to keep this important literature out of the hands of the proletariat? (lol) Best regards, Gary (Adelaide, South Australia)
Thanks, Gary. The latest I’ve heard is that a new printing will be available on October 28. I appreciate your interest!