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Literary Review
BOOK WATCH
Going strong at 60
BY ANITA JOSHUA
Man Against Myth, Barrows Dunham, National Book Trust, Rs. 95.
The Amazon.com price for a paperback edition of Man Against Myth by Barrows Dunham — one of the most outspoken philosophers of 20th Century America during the “McCarthy Era” — is $23.52. The National Book Trust (NBT) has come out with a reprint of the book — for which the author was blacklisted and removed from his job as chairman of Temple University’s philosophy department — for just under Rs. 100.
While Dunham’s book of 1947 vintage might have only a niche audience — despite the general belief among philosophers that everyone has a philosophy — the three forewords by Dunham’s son and grandchildren and the introduction by Randhir Singh open it out for a wider market.
Described by Albert Einstein as “an instructive, amusing and courageous book whose success is most desirable in the public interest”, the book demolishes various myths perpetuated by the haves of society and the powers that be to maintain status quo.
Though the book is now 60 years old, Singh and NBT argue that it is as relevant today as it was when first published. Billing Man Against Myth as the best introduction to Marxist philosophy, Singh points out that since the “gloom” that Dunham wrote about is thicker today primarily because of “capitalism’s hegemonic control”, the struggle must go on.
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