Ours has been called the century of the critic--and indeed, there has been much to criticize. But what exactly is the social critic's role? More specifically, how should the critic relate to the society he is criticiz-ing? Must he inevitably be alienated, or is it his job somehow to find a way to "connect" with his fellow citizens and defend the deep, underlying values of his society?

In this eloquent and beautifully argued book, Michael Walzer, a prominent American social critic, addresses this question head-on by examining the involvement of social critics in the revolutionary politics of the twentieth century. In eleven perceptive chapters on some of our century's major social critics, from Julien Benda to the still relatively unknown South African Breyten Breytenbach (and including Antonio Gramsci, George Orwell, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, and Michel Foucault), he assesses their relationship to the major social movements of our time-socialism, civil rights, feminism, national liberation, and so forth. It is, he shows, a story of both participation and disenchant-ment. But he argues throughout for a criticism that is derived from a consistent, though always nuanced and qualified, connection to the society that is being criticized for criticism from the inside.