Intimate Strangers: Arendt, Marcuse, Solzhenitsyn, and Said in American Political Discourse

Ritivoi (Paul Ricoeur) examines four émigrés—Hannah Arendt, Herbert Marcuse, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and Edward Said—who indelibly altered the United States’s political landscape and developed the paradigm of the “stranger persona.” Ritivoi claims that these thinkers’ pointed critiques of U.S. politics and culture did not arise in spite of their outsider status, but because of it. Too often xenophobia caused these reproaches to fall on deaf ears. The majority of the book parses each thinker’s intellectual and political contributions but falls short of establishing an overarching analysis or a robust theoretical framework. Similarly, the biographies themselves are of mixed quality. Ritivoi’s commentary on Arendt is rote and superficial; likewise, her account of Marcuse repeatedly references the same trifling anecdote. However, her take on Solzhenitsyn, and the unique admiration and rejection his assertions inspired, as well as Said’s political maturation are dynamic and compelling. Although flawed, Ritivoi’s work launches worthy lines of inquiry concerning the reception of foreign analysis and what it reveals about the U.S.’s self-image. Despite its unevenness, the book is charming and accessible introduction to these thinkers’ influence on American political discourse. (Sept.)