After an introduction to the major issues confronting intellectuals, this book explores the various aspects of the intellectual's role including:

* philosophers and academics who have tried to define the function of the intellectual

* how intellectuals have assumed the status of the conscience of the nation and the voice of the oppressed

* the interaction of intellectuals with Marxism

* the place of the intellectual in American society

Covering regions as diverse as Israel, Algeria, Britain, Ireland, central Europe and America, this collection considers the question of whether the intellectual can still lay claim to the language of truth. In answering, this study tells us much about the modern world in which we live.

Coverage includes the following thinkers: Gramsci, Weber, Yeats, Auden, Levy, Mailer, Walzer, Marx and many more.