Kevin Mattson
Biographic Data
| ID | 3758086 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kevin Mattson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kevin |
| FAMILY NAME | Mattson |
| SIGNATURE | MATTSON K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Ohio University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 78 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1990 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Return of Resentment: The Rise and Decline and Rise Again of a Political Emotion
True Blues: The Contentious Transformation of the Democratic Party
This fine book traces the often-tumultuous arguments found within the Democratic party (at the time of this writing, this is clear in the fight between centrists and so-called progressives). The author's starting point is an obvious one: the call to reform the Democratic party when Senator George McGovern assumed leadership over it in 1972 and helped push a “New Politics” vision of reform (p. 13). Adam Hilton explains, “New Politics advocates saw…
Leather Jackets for flowers: The death of hippie and the birth of punk in the long, late 1960s
This article locates the roots of “punk rock” in the “hippie” counterculture of Detroit, circa 1967–1970. It opens with an intellectual biography of John Sinclair, emphasizing how he developed the principle of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) in his work with the Detroit Artists Workshop and then his management of the band, the MC5. The article then explores the role of the audience in the MC5’s shows and how institutions – including performance spaces and l…
Forging Rivals: Race, Class, Law, and the Collapse of Postwar Liberalism
Reuel Schiller examines two central causes that fortified postwar American liberalism. Namely, a conflict between confronting racial inequality and defending minority rights and, at the same time, supporting labor unions that relied upon majoritarian rules (i.e., fifty-plus -one elections for collective bargaining representation). Deploying legal history, Schiller has written an important book about the decline of American liberalism over the lat…
The Americanization of Narcissism
Henry Wallace’s 1948 Presidential Campaign and the Future of Postwar Liberalism
The Progressive Party that nominated Henry Wallace as its presidential candidate for 1948 stands as one of the boldest experiments in third-party politics. Some historians have depicted Wallace as a heroic leftist, a man who challenged the Cold War drift toward “reaction” and “red-baiting.” He “spoke out forcefully” for the “common man” against the “stooges” of Wall Street, while politics trended rightwards (p. xi). For others—including anti-comm…
Upton Sinclair: California Socialist, Celebrity Intellectual
Journal Article Upton Sinclair: California Socialist, Celebrity Intellectual Get access Upton Sinclair: California Socialist, Celebrity Intellectual. By Lauren Coodley. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013. xvii + 237 pp. Illustrations, map, appendices, notes, index. $28.95, CAN$33.50, £19.99.) Kevin Mattson Kevin Mattson Ohio University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Western Historical Quarterly,…
Geographers And Drugs: A Survey Of The Literature
The United Nations estimates that the illegal drug trade accounts for 1.5 percent of all money transiting through the global financial system (UNODC 2011). A quick perusal of a list of major drug‐p
The City on the Hill from Below: The Crisis of Prophetic Black Politics
Journal Article The City on the Hill from Below: The Crisis of Prophetic Black Politics Get access The City on the Hill from Below: The Crisis of Prophetic Black Politics. By Stephen H. Marshall. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011. xii, 235 pp. $64.50.) Kevin Mattson Kevin Mattson Ohio UniversityAthens, Ohio [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 99, …
Framing the Sixties: The use and abuse of a decade from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush
To the Flag: The Unlikely History of the Pledge of Allegiance
To the Flag: The Unlikely History of the Pledge of Allegiance. By Richard J. Ellis. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005. 312p. $29.95 cloth, $15.95 paper. This is an intelligent book about the strange story of American patriotism. Strange because America is much more of an “imagined community,” to use Benedict Anderson's evocative concept, than most Western European states. Also strange because, as Richard Ellis points out, it has been so …
Terror, Culture, Politics: Rethinking 9/11
This book is about the politics of memory. The authors explore numerous cultural artifacts—photographs, comic books, and public monuments—that conjure memories of tragic affairs. When it comes to 9/11, the authors, who write from a variety of disciplines and vantage points, see memory as contested. Daniel J. Sherman points out, for instance, that the World Trade Center (wtc) had “been the object of clashing interests virtually from the moment the…
When America Was Great: The Fighting Faith of Liberalism in Post-War America
A sweeping intellectual history that will make us rethink postwar politics and culture, When America Was Great profiles the thinkers and writers who crafted a new American liberal tradition in a conservative era -- from historians Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and C. Vann Woodward, to economist John Kenneth Galbraith and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.A compelling tale that will redefine the word "liberal" for a new generation, Mattson retraces the intel…
Why We Should Be Reading Reinhold Niebuhr Now More Than Ever: Liberalism and the Future of American Political Thought
Christopher Lasch and the Possibilities of Chastened Liberalism
The political theory of Christopher Lasch-one of America's most prominent public intellectuals-is set within its own historical context and analyzed in this essay. It focuses on Lasch's relationship to American liberalism both in political and intellectual terms. Typically this relationship is understood as antagonistic, but here the relationship is seen as more sympathetic and nuanced. This essay examines the themes of class, social control, and…
Go West, Everyone
Remember Liberalism
Generation Backlash
Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban Participatory Democracy during the Progressive Era
Journal Article Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban Participatory Democracy during the Progressive Era. By Kevin Mattson. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. viii, 208 pp. Cloth, $45.00, ISBN 0-271-01722-8. Paper, $16.95, ISBN 0-271-01723-6.) Get access Peter McCaffery Peter McCaffery Thames Valley University, London, United Kingdom Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar …
Deliberative Democracy in Practice: Challenges and Prospects for Civic Deliberation
We bring democratic theory and democratic practice together by examining practical efforts by several different organizations around the USA to make good on the promise of democratic deliberation through organization of public forums on particular issues. Participant observation and interviews with organizers and other participants reveals that deliberation is a complicated process marked by conflict, differing orientations, and political inequal…
Democratic Civility: The History and Cross-Cultural Possibility of a Modern Political Ideal
Doing Good, Looking Marvelous
Mentoring Outside the Ivory Tower
Maybe it is that Bad
By refusing to bow to the Right or the Left, Russell Jacoby rises above the typical debates about academic life in America and carves out a more subtle and perceptive criticism of higher education. He criticizes the Right for ignoring the threat to liberal education posed by commercialism and contends that conservatives become implicated in their own critique: “Today's conservatives ... damn marginal leftist academics, not an expanding commercial…
Populism and the NEA
Populism seems to leave little room for intellectuals, and the very idea of a “populist intellectual” seems absurd. This is due mostly to old assumptions codified during the 1950s by Richard Hofstadter and others, that populism and intellectualism are incompatible. Emphasizing Senator McCarthy's attacks on intellectuals, contributors to an influential anthology on The New American Right made a clear and long-lasting association between anti-intel…
Deliberative Democracy in Practice: Challenges and Prospects for Civic Deliberation
We bring democratic theory and democratic practice together by examining practical efforts by several different organizations around the USA to make good on the promise of democratic deliberation through organization of public forums on particular issues. Participant observation and interviews with organizers and other participants reveals that deliberation is a complicated process marked by conflict, differing orientations, and political inequal…
Geographers And Drugs: A Survey Of The Literature
The United Nations estimates that the illegal drug trade accounts for 1.5 percent of all money transiting through the global financial system (UNODC 2011). A quick perusal of a list of major drug‐p
The City on the Hill from Below: The Crisis of Prophetic Black Politics
Journal Article The City on the Hill from Below: The Crisis of Prophetic Black Politics Get access The City on the Hill from Below: The Crisis of Prophetic Black Politics. By Stephen H. Marshall. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011. xii, 235 pp. $64.50.) Kevin Mattson Kevin Mattson Ohio UniversityAthens, Ohio [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 99, …
True Blues: The Contentious Transformation of the Democratic Party
This fine book traces the often-tumultuous arguments found within the Democratic party (at the time of this writing, this is clear in the fight between centrists and so-called progressives). The author's starting point is an obvious one: the call to reform the Democratic party when Senator George McGovern assumed leadership over it in 1972 and helped push a “New Politics” vision of reform (p. 13). Adam Hilton explains, “New Politics advocates saw…
The Americanization of Narcissism
Christopher Lasch and the Possibilities of Chastened Liberalism
The political theory of Christopher Lasch-one of America's most prominent public intellectuals-is set within its own historical context and analyzed in this essay. It focuses on Lasch's relationship to American liberalism both in political and intellectual terms. Typically this relationship is understood as antagonistic, but here the relationship is seen as more sympathetic and nuanced. This essay examines the themes of class, social control, and…
The Dialectic of Powerlessness: Black Identity Culture and Affirmative Action
The young, disgruntled artist facing a hostile, reified art world is a fixture in modern society. This type bemoans a cynical world in which everything boils down to the right connections and the destruction of one's identity. The patron system of galleries and government sponsors — especially the “censoring” N.E.A. — are classic objects of derision at artistic gatherings. This attitude is encapsulated in the jaded world of the culture industry. …
The Character of our Content
Shelby Steele The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990). 175 pp
The Dialectic of Powerlessness: Black Identity Culture and Affirmative Action
The young, disgruntled artist facing a hostile, reified art world is a fixture in modern society. This type bemoans a cynical world in which everything boils down to the right connections and the destruction of one's identity. The patron system of galleries and government sponsors — especially the “censoring” N.E.A. — are classic objects of derision at artistic gatherings. This attitude is encapsulated in the jaded world of the culture industry. …
Populism and the NEA
Populism seems to leave little room for intellectuals, and the very idea of a “populist intellectual” seems absurd. This is due mostly to old assumptions codified during the 1950s by Richard Hofstadter and others, that populism and intellectualism are incompatible. Emphasizing Senator McCarthy's attacks on intellectuals, contributors to an influential anthology on The New American Right made a clear and long-lasting association between anti-intel…
Maybe it is that Bad
By refusing to bow to the Right or the Left, Russell Jacoby rises above the typical debates about academic life in America and carves out a more subtle and perceptive criticism of higher education. He criticizes the Right for ignoring the threat to liberal education posed by commercialism and contends that conservatives become implicated in their own critique: “Today's conservatives ... damn marginal leftist academics, not an expanding commercial…
Doing Good, Looking Marvelous
Mentoring Outside the Ivory Tower
Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban Participatory Democracy during the Progressive Era
Journal Article Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban Participatory Democracy during the Progressive Era. By Kevin Mattson. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. viii, 208 pp. Cloth, $45.00, ISBN 0-271-01722-8. Paper, $16.95, ISBN 0-271-01723-6.) Get access Peter McCaffery Peter McCaffery Thames Valley University, London, United Kingdom Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar …
Deliberative Democracy in Practice: Challenges and Prospects for Civic Deliberation
We bring democratic theory and democratic practice together by examining practical efforts by several different organizations around the USA to make good on the promise of democratic deliberation through organization of public forums on particular issues. Participant observation and interviews with organizers and other participants reveals that deliberation is a complicated process marked by conflict, differing orientations, and political inequal…
Democratic Civility: The History and Cross-Cultural Possibility of a Modern Political Ideal
Remember Liberalism
Generation Backlash
Go West, Everyone
Christopher Lasch and the Possibilities of Chastened Liberalism
The political theory of Christopher Lasch-one of America's most prominent public intellectuals-is set within its own historical context and analyzed in this essay. It focuses on Lasch's relationship to American liberalism both in political and intellectual terms. Typically this relationship is understood as antagonistic, but here the relationship is seen as more sympathetic and nuanced. This essay examines the themes of class, social control, and…
When America Was Great: The Fighting Faith of Liberalism in Post-War America
A sweeping intellectual history that will make us rethink postwar politics and culture, When America Was Great profiles the thinkers and writers who crafted a new American liberal tradition in a conservative era -- from historians Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and C. Vann Woodward, to economist John Kenneth Galbraith and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.A compelling tale that will redefine the word "liberal" for a new generation, Mattson retraces the intel…
Why We Should Be Reading Reinhold Niebuhr Now More Than Ever: Liberalism and the Future of American Political Thought
Terror, Culture, Politics: Rethinking 9/11
This book is about the politics of memory. The authors explore numerous cultural artifacts—photographs, comic books, and public monuments—that conjure memories of tragic affairs. When it comes to 9/11, the authors, who write from a variety of disciplines and vantage points, see memory as contested. Daniel J. Sherman points out, for instance, that the World Trade Center (wtc) had “been the object of clashing interests virtually from the moment the…
To the Flag: The Unlikely History of the Pledge of Allegiance
To the Flag: The Unlikely History of the Pledge of Allegiance. By Richard J. Ellis. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005. 312p. $29.95 cloth, $15.95 paper. This is an intelligent book about the strange story of American patriotism. Strange because America is much more of an “imagined community,” to use Benedict Anderson's evocative concept, than most Western European states. Also strange because, as Richard Ellis points out, it has been so …
Framing the Sixties: The use and abuse of a decade from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush
The City on the Hill from Below: The Crisis of Prophetic Black Politics
Journal Article The City on the Hill from Below: The Crisis of Prophetic Black Politics Get access The City on the Hill from Below: The Crisis of Prophetic Black Politics. By Stephen H. Marshall. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011. xii, 235 pp. $64.50.) Kevin Mattson Kevin Mattson Ohio UniversityAthens, Ohio [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 99, …
Geographers And Drugs: A Survey Of The Literature
The United Nations estimates that the illegal drug trade accounts for 1.5 percent of all money transiting through the global financial system (UNODC 2011). A quick perusal of a list of major drug‐p
Henry Wallace’s 1948 Presidential Campaign and the Future of Postwar Liberalism
The Progressive Party that nominated Henry Wallace as its presidential candidate for 1948 stands as one of the boldest experiments in third-party politics. Some historians have depicted Wallace as a heroic leftist, a man who challenged the Cold War drift toward “reaction” and “red-baiting.” He “spoke out forcefully” for the “common man” against the “stooges” of Wall Street, while politics trended rightwards (p. xi). For others—including anti-comm…
Upton Sinclair: California Socialist, Celebrity Intellectual
Journal Article Upton Sinclair: California Socialist, Celebrity Intellectual Get access Upton Sinclair: California Socialist, Celebrity Intellectual. By Lauren Coodley. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013. xvii + 237 pp. Illustrations, map, appendices, notes, index. $28.95, CAN$33.50, £19.99.) Kevin Mattson Kevin Mattson Ohio University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Western Historical Quarterly,…
The Americanization of Narcissism
Forging Rivals: Race, Class, Law, and the Collapse of Postwar Liberalism
Reuel Schiller examines two central causes that fortified postwar American liberalism. Namely, a conflict between confronting racial inequality and defending minority rights and, at the same time, supporting labor unions that relied upon majoritarian rules (i.e., fifty-plus -one elections for collective bargaining representation). Deploying legal history, Schiller has written an important book about the decline of American liberalism over the lat…
Leather Jackets for flowers: The death of hippie and the birth of punk in the long, late 1960s
This article locates the roots of “punk rock” in the “hippie” counterculture of Detroit, circa 1967–1970. It opens with an intellectual biography of John Sinclair, emphasizing how he developed the principle of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) in his work with the Detroit Artists Workshop and then his management of the band, the MC5. The article then explores the role of the audience in the MC5’s shows and how institutions – including performance spaces and l…
Political science (20 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Law (17 works) · Politics (15 works) · Law (14 works) · History (12 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · History (8 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Democracy (6 works)