The Principle of Political Hope

The Principle of Political Hope is an erudite, wide-ranging, and engaging study of the concept of political hope that puts German critical theory into productive conversation with American pragmatism. Differentiating hope from optimism and freeing it from the baggage of developmentalist readings of history, Goldman recuperates hope as a practical, political orientation, one that finds its fullest realization in democratic experimentation. * Amy Allen, author of Critique on the Couch: Why Critical Theory Needs Psychoanalysis *
An achingly beautiful book for our bleak times. Through rich and original readings of Kant, Bloch, and the American pragmatists, Goldman pries hope apart from temperament, attitude, and historiography to embed it in human action and experimentation. He insists that, for all our foibles and failures, we are the creatures who make the impossible possible in political life, and there hope resides. * Wendy Brown, author of Nihilistic Times: Thinking with Max Weber *
A spirited defense of democratic hope. Goldman's philosophical interlocutors-Kant, Bloch, Pierce, William James, and centrally John Dewey-bespeak surprising continuities between German idealism and American pragmatism. Kant's practical belief in moral and political progress, and the hope, predicated on action, in a more peaceful and equitable world, find apt exposition in this timely and important book. * Adam Potkay, author of Hope: A Literary History *
Loren Goldman's The Principle of Political Hope is a well-written and provocative book on the indispensability of hope, a conception of hope that simultaneously evades commitments to linear progress and tendencies to resort to political quietism. In lucidly written prose, Goldman builds on the insights and limits of a series of key modern thinkers-Kant's idea of progress, Bloch's concrete utopia, Dewey's democratic experimentalism-to argue for the radical potential for democratic action and change. In addition to bringing together authors across different philosophical traditions (crossing the continental/anglo-american divide), Goldman's book provides inspiration in these dark times. * Joseph Winters, author of Hope Draped in Black: Race, Melancholy, and the Agony of Progress *
This study may appeal largely to specialists, and its detailed scholarship and documentation may well satisfy them. * Choice *
Goldman's book offers innumerable contributions to contemporary political thought. He bridges between American pragmatism and German idealism; offers a rigorous analysis of Bloch's untranslated works; anchors hope within democratic theory; and defends Dewey against accusations of an individualistic account of political pragmatism. Goldman is generous with his readers by constructing his argument and analysis in eloquent prose, and by providing ample signposts to orient the reader within his work. This book is easily recommended to theorists and philosophers of democracy, pragmatism, and political hope. * Mary E. Witlacil, Contemporary Political Theory *