Bibliography - Robert Nisbet

Books

Teachers and Scholars: a Memoir of Berkeley in Depression and War

– Nisbet, Robert A. 1988. Teachers and Scholars: A Memoir of Berkeley in Depression and War. New Brunswick and London: Transaction publishers.

Review from Amazon.com: The University of California at Berkeley is today best known as a great research center and popularly remembered as a locus of campus unrest in the 1960s. This memoir by the eminent sociologist and historian of ideas Robert Nisbet… More

The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America

– Nisbet, Robert A. 1988. The present age: progress and anarchy in modern America. New York: Harper & Row.

Abstract: The Present Age I The Prevalence Of War Of all faces of the present age in America, the military face would almost certainly prove the most astounding to any Framers of the Constitution, any Founders of the Republic who came back to inspect their… More

Roosevelt and Stalin: the Failed Courtship

– Nisbet, Robert A. 1988. Roosevelt and Stalin: the failed courtship. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway.

Review on Amazon: Robert Nisbet tells the extraordinary full story of the futile pursuit of American President Franklin Roosevelt for the friendship of Russian leader Josef Stalin. The final chapter reveals the motivations which drove FDR to this peculiar… More

Conservatism: Dream and reality

– Nisbet, Robert A. 1986. Conservatism: dream and reality. Milton Keynes, England: Open University Press.

Review on Amazon: The essential concerns of conservatism are the same as those that motivated Nisbet’s first and most influential book, The Quest for Community. In fact, Conservatism unites virtually all of Nisbet’s work. In it, Nisbet deals with… More

The Making of Modern Society

– Nisbet, Robert A.1986. The Making of Modern Society. New York: New York University Press.

Institutional online access(Limited search only): The Making of Modern Society. Buy hardcopy on Amazon.com: The Making of Modern Society.

Prejudices: a Philosophical Dictionary

– Nisbet, Robert A. 1982. Prejudices: a philosophical dictionary. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Review on Amazon: Review All of the qualities of mind for which Nisbet is famous are fully displayed in this marvelous book―his philosophical profundity, his mastery of history, his biting wit, his moral outrage, his uncommon sense. Nisbet’s dictionary… More

History of the Idea of Progress

– Nisbet, Robert A. 1980. History of the idea of progress. New York: Basic Books.

Review on Amazon: The idea of progress from the Enlightenment to postmodernism is still very much with us. In intellectual discourse, journals, popular magazines, and radio and talk shows, the debate between those who are “progressivists” and… More

Sociology as an Art Form

– Nisbet, Robert A. 1976. Sociology as an art form. New York: Oxford University Press.

Abstract: The author asserts that sociology is indeed an art form, one that has a strong kinship with literature, painting, Romantic history, and philosophy in the nineteenth century, the age in which sociology came into full stature. He explains the degree… More

Twilight of Authority

– Nisbet, Robert A. 1975. Twilight of authority. New York: Oxford University Press.

Review on Amazon.com: “We had thought, or our forefathers had, that modern liberal democracy would be spared the kind of erosion and decay that both Plato and Aristotle declared endemic in all forms of state. Now we are not so sure.” So wrote… More

The Sociology of Emile Durkheim

– Nisbet, Robert A. 1974. The sociology of Emile Durkheim. New York: Oxford University Press.

Buy hardcopy on Amazon.com: The sociology of Emile Durkheim.

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Commentary

[in chronological order]

Caritas and Community: Reflections on the Conservative Sociological Art of Robert Nisbet

– Adler, Judith. "Caritas and Community: Reflections on the Conservative Sociological Art of Robert Nisbet." Society 52, vo. 4. 2015: (316-23). doi:10.1007/s12115-015-9907-1

Abstract: Nisbet’s conception of sociology practiced as an art form: multivocality, tolerance for uncertainty, wealth of invention, reservation of judgement. Tocqueville as exemplar. Nisbet’s own writings evaluated in the light of his best insights. A… More

Robert Nisbet’s Visible and Invisible Communities

– Harold,Philip. "Robert Nisbet's Visible and Invisible Communities." The Catholic Social Science Review 15, (2010): 175-191.

Abstract: Communitarian Robert Nisbet’s most famous book, The Quest for Community, falls short of what it intends to prove. Nisbet misinterprets Tocqueville on the nature of individualism and fails to comprehend the nature of the modern state. Most… More

Remembering Alienation

– Wolfe, Alan. "Remembering Alienation." New Republic. 2010.

Abstract: The uneasiness, the malaise of our time, is due to this root fact: in our politics and economy, in family life and religion—in practically every sphere of our existence—the certainties of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have… More

Robert Nisbet and the Blight in the Olive Grove

– Henry, Regnery, and edited by Nelson, Jeffery O. “Robert Nisbet and the Blight in the Olive Grove.” Perfect Sowing: Reflections of a Bookman, (1991): 156-62.

Abstract: [In the following excerpt, Regnery emphasizes Nisbet’s criticisms of Enlightenment ideas and their tendency to overestimate the individual’s capacity for reason and virtue.] The university, in Professor Robert Nisbet’s view of the… More

A True Sociologist

– Stone, Brad Lowell. “A True Sociologist.” The Intercollegiate Review 33, no. 2, (1998): 38-42.

Abstract: [In the following essay, Stone briefly reviews Nisbet’s life and work, emphasizing Nisbet’s criticisms of centralized power and the romantic individualism of Jean Jacques Rousseau.] Henri Bergson once observed that a true great thinker… More

Robert Nisbet and the Modern State

– Perrin, Robert G. “Robert Nisbet and the Modern State.” Modern Age 39, no. 1, (1997): 39-47.

Abstract: [In the following essay, Perrin reviews Nisbet’s life’s work, focusing on Nisbet’s developing theories concerning the cause of growth of the centralized territorial state and how that state has affected more local, social… More

Losing Giants

– Horowitz, Irving Louis. “Losing Giants.” Society 34, no. 3, (1997): 56-63.

Abstract: [In the following essay, Horowitz laments the deaths of Nisbet, E. Digby Baltzell, and Anselm L. Strauss, highlighting their common dislike of the entrenched elites of the late twentieth century.] Recently Society published notices of the passing of… More

A Humane Sociologist: Remembering Robert Nisbet

– Kirk, Russell. “A Humane Sociologist: Remembering Robert Nisbet.” University Bookman, 1996: (29-39).

Abstract: [In the following essay, Kirk praises Nisbet’s Quest for Community for showing the individual’s natural desire to form strong social attachments and the ways in which this drive persists in an era of centralized political and economic… More

Robert Nisbet vs. the Nanny State

– “Robert Nisbet vs. the Nanny State.” American Enterprise 7, no. 6, (1996): 17-18.

Abstract: [In the following essay, the editors of the American Enterprise argue that Nisbet’s focus on the need for strong social institutions has become a dominant theme in American conservatism.] Just as “big government” has become anathema and… More

Robert Nisbet’s Quest

– Brooks, David. “Robert Nisbet’s Quest.” Weekly Standard 2, no. 3, (1996): 14-15.

Abstract: [In the following essay, Brooks praises Nisbet’s analysis of the sources of increased political centralization and the inevitable effects of this centralization on social institutions.] Robert Nisbet was ailing when Hillary Clinton uttered the… More

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Essays

Social Science

– Nisbet, Robert A. "Social science." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Jul. 20, 1998.

Abstract: Social science, any discipline or branch of science that deals with human behaviour in its social and cultural aspects. The social sciences include cultural (or social) anthropology, sociology, social psychology, political science, and economics.… More

Still Questioning

– Nisbet, Robert A. "Still Questioning." Intercollegiate Studies Institute-Education for Liberty. 1993.

Abstract: In the retrospect of forty years I can see my book, The Quest for Community (first published by Oxford University Press in 1953; currently available from ICS Press, San Francisco), as one of the harbingers of what would become by the end of… More

The conservative renaissance in perspective

– Nisbet, Robert A. "The conservative renaissance in perspective." The Public Interest. 1985.

Abstract: CONSERVATIVES might have been forgiven on election night, 1980, had visions of the millennium welled up in their minds. Ronald Reagan, 18-karat conservative of more than thirty years, former two-term governor, eloquent champion of Goldwater in 1964,… More

The Coercive Utopians, by Rael Jean Isaac and Erich Isaac

– Nisbet, Robert A. "The Coercive Utopians, by Rael Jean Isaac and Erich Isaac." Commentary Magazine. 1984.

Abstract: Who are the coercive utopians? According to Rael Jean and Erich Isaac in this valuable book, they are the people in present-day America who hold the view that man is by nature both innocent and perfectible; that man’s innate decency is tormented… More

Slavery and Social Death, by Orlando Patterson

– Nisbet, Robert A. "Slavery and Social Death, by Orlando Patterson." Commentary Magazine. 1983.

Abstract: Slavery, this book demonstrates, far from being a “peculiar institution,” comes very close to being, along with kinship and religion,… Read online on Commentary Magazine: Slavery and Social Death, by Orlando Patterson.

Eric Voegelins Vision 71

– Nisbet, Robert A. "Eric Voegelins Vision 71." The Public Interest. 1983.

Abstract: EVER since his book, The New Science of Politics,was published in 1952, Erie Voegelin s reputation has been located among those thinkers we are prone to call “well known” but not “known well.” A formidable combination of scholarship and… More

Tocqueville Revisited

– Nisbet, Robert A. "Tocqueville revisited." The New Criterion 1, no 1. 1982: (76).

Abstract: Richard Reeves American Journey: Travelling with Tocqueville in Search of Democracy in America. Simon & Schuster, 399 pages. It is a rare month when a newspaper column, article, or book doesn’t appear in which Alexis de Tocqueville is… More

The Quintessential Liberal

– Nisbet, Robert A. "The Quintessential Liberal." Commentary Magazine. 1981.

Abstract: More than anyone else I can think of, including the late Hubert Humphrey, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., George McGovern, and James McGregor Burns, among others, John Kenneth Galbraith is the nearly perfect exemplar of American liberalism as we have come… More

MODERN AGE A QUARTERLY REVIEW: Conservatives and Libertarians: Uneasy Cousins

– Nisbet, Robert A. "MODERN AGE A QUARTERLY REVIEW: Conservatives and Libertarians: Uneasy Cousins." Isistatic. 1980.

Abstract: BY COMMON ASSENT modern conservatism, as political philosophy, springs from Edmund Burke: chiefly from his Reflections on the Revolution in France, published in 1790. That book is of course more than a brilliantly prescient analysis of the… More

Knowledge and Decisions, by Thomas Sowell

– Nisbet, Robert A. "Knowledge and Decisions, by Thomas Sowell." Commentary Magazine. 1980.

Abstract: During the past decade Thomas Sowell, who is professor of economics at UCLA, has made evident through a considerable range… Read online on Commentary Magazine: Knowledge and Decisions, by Thomas Sowell.

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Robert Nisbet