This title offers a withering and clear-eyed critique about-but not for-intellectuals that explores their impact on public opinion, policy, and society most importantly.

The thesis of Intellectuals and Society states that the influence of intellectuals is not only greater than in previous eras but also takes a very different form from that envisioned by those like Machiavelli and other people who have wished to directly influence rulers. It has not been by shaping the views or directing the about Intellectuals and Society actions of the holders of power that modern intellectuals have most inspired the course of occasions but by shaping public opinion with techniques that impact the activities of power holders in democratic societies, if those power holders accept the general eyesight or the particular policies well-liked by intellectuals. Even government leaders with disdain or contempt for intellectuals have had to bend to the weather of opinion shaped by them.

Intellectuals and Culture not only examines the track record of intellectuals in the items they have got advocated, but also analyzes the incentives and constraints under which their sights and visions have got emerged. Probably one of the most astonishing areas of this research is how frequently intellectuals have been proven not only wrong, but grossly and disastrously wrong in their prescriptions for the ills of society-and how little their views have changed in response to empirical evidence of the disasters entailed by those sights.