A retrospective introduction -- American universalism and its democracy -- Area studies revisited -- The American state allegorizes the ruins -- Can American studies be "area studies"? -- Critical poetics: American resources for theorizing America -- Curiosity in the education of Henry Adams -- Can we judge the humanities by their future as a course of study? -- Humanities and the changing role of worldly engagement -- Rights discourse in the age of U.S.-China trade -- Historical humanist, American style -- The ineluctability of American empire -- The intellectual as a contemporary phenomenon -- The end of thinking: intellectual failure in the new world order -- Why the neocons hate Henry Adams
Summary
An intervention toward understanding the recent dark political and intellectual days
