Lexington Books
Pages: 230
Trim: 6⅜ x 9⅜
978-1-4985-3754-4 • Hardback • August 2017 • $117.00 • (£90.00)
978-1-4985-3755-1 • eBook • August 2017 • $111.00 • (£85.00)
Brian A. Smith is associate professor and deputy chair in the Department of Political Science and Law at Montclair State University.
Chapter 1: The Mishmash Theory of Man
Chapter 2: On the Cult of the Expert and the Dangers of Scientism
Chapter 3: Individualism, Community, and the Longing for Place
Chapter 4: Stoicism and the Honor-Bound South
Chapter 5: Dreaming of the End Times
Chapter 6: Toward a New Social Science
Chapter 7: Percy’s Vision of Family, Community, and Faith
Smith’s book has excellent insights on Percy’s relevance to race, social science, and philosophy.
— Christianity Today
Brian A. Smith’s Walker Percy and the Politics of the Wayfarer is an extraordinary exploration of the writings of a sadly underappreciated observer of the American soul. . . . Walker Percy and the Politics of the Wayfarer is a significant accomplishment and deserves careful reading. Smith has the uncanny ability to weave the disparate threads of Percy’s writings into a cogent narrative understandable even to those less familiar with the author’s work. . . . As for Smith’s work, perhaps the greatest among its many
merits is that it whets the appetite just enough to entice readers to revisit Percy’s novels yet again.
— Interpretation
This is an elegant and meticulous presentation of the political thought in existential context of America's most original and deepest thinker of the 20th century. It's obviously the result of years of reflection, and it might well be the best book ever published on Walker Percy. Smith, in fact, has not just written a book on this philosopher-novelist, but on the truth about who we are and what we're supposed to do.
— Peter Augustine Lawler, Berry College