Posted on 02/08/2016 5:59:40 PM PST by madmominct
This sounds like a great book - thought you guys might be interested.
In The Devil’s Pleasure Palace, Walsh brings his substantial erudition to bear on his best nonfiction work so far, a tour de force about how the “new nihilists†of the so-called Frankfurt School and their philosophy of “Critical Theory – like Pandora’s Box – released a horde of demons into the American psyche.†Disguised as a utopian dream, it– like Satan, a key figure in the book – instead sowed “destruction, division, hatred, and calumny.â€
This is not a casual beach read. It’s not even your typical political polemic from the likes of Coulter, Malkin, or Levin, valuable as those are. Though this slim volume runs only just over 200 pages, Walsh’s wide-ranging intellect ropes together grand themes of good and evil, creation and destruction, capitalism and socialism. The book is about, in his words,
God, Satan, and the satanic in men; about myths and legends and the truths within them; about culture versus p0litics, about the difference between story and plot. It is about Milton versus Marx, the United States versus Germany, about redemptive truth versus Mephistophelian bands of illusion and the Devil’s jokes. It concerns itself with the interrelation of culture, religion, sex, and politics – in other words, something herein to offend nearly everybody.
(Excerpt) Read more at frontpagemag.com ...
I read the book a few months ago and was very disappointed. The author gives a few pages to members of the Frankfurt school, cites a few quotes, but does very little analysis on how they expanded their influence to take over the academy and culture. No bloodlines, as it were.
Far more of it is speculative musings, not much backed up by evidence, on religious matters, the devil, and music. IIRC, and I’m not sure I do, because this wasn’t a book that stuck with me, John Milton’s Paradise Lost is Walsh’s source on Satan, rather than the Bible.
Worth taking a look at to see if it speaks to you, but not worth the money or shelf space IMO. Try the library or borrow from a friend.
Really? I read the review in Frontpagemag and was hopeful of pith cultural commentary.
Ah - too late- I bought it on Kindle. We’ll see...
I thought this post was about a Trump hotel.
I’m SO disappointed!
Haha!!
Oh look, a Cruzer made a funny! Brilliant
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