Animal Spirits

"In his fifth book, [Lears's] note of longing at last finds full voice . . . Lears floats and darts and swoops—from indigenous wisdom to Romantic poetry, from 'Tristram Shandy' to Bergson vs. Benda, from the Iraq war to neo-Lamarckian genetics and beyond . . . Surprising, fascinating . . . Lears has been so diligent in excavating the irrational and the enchanted in our lives that when you look around after reading his book, you think: What’s not strange?"—Jeremy McCarter, The Wall Street Journal

"Jackson Lears is the preeminent cultural historian of the American empire. This book is another masterpiece in his magisterial corpus. His grand narrative of animal spirits and popular vitalism takes us from the heights of William James, John Maynard Keynes, Norman Mailer, and Jane Bennett to the depths of grassroots spiritualism and countercultural activism. His ecological vision and radical democratic politics speak directly to our moment of spiritual decay and market idolatry!’’—Cornel West

"Jackson Lears has once again, brilliantly, found a keynote for our culture, this time in our vitalist passions and wildness. With vast learning and literary grace, he plunges deep into the American phrenzy, centuries of it, finding it sometimes bewildering, sometimes loony, but redeemed in the end by a pulsating openness to the universe."—Sean Wilentz, author of No Property in Man and The Rise of American Democracy

"Is modernity about progress beyond animistic and vitalistic superstition? On the contrary, America’s leading cultural historian proves in this absorbing, delightful, and unexpected book. Not only did advances—including in our best economic theory—lean on insights into the enduring limits of reason. Even now, Jackson Lears shows, our national future will depend on continuing exploration of the creative enigma of being alive."—Samuel Moyn, author of Humane

"With Animal Spirits, Jackson Lears gives us yet another tour de force of Anglo-American cultural history. The energy of his ideas and the hum and roar of his prose should convince even the most skeptical reader of the 'miraculous aliveness of the world.' It’s as if vitalism itself chose Lears to author its biography."—Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, author of American Nietzsche

"Animal Spirits is several important books in one: a revisionist history revealing the invincible strain of vitalism running through modern social thought and culture; a fresh portrait of key thinkers, notably William James and John Maynard Keynes, casting them in the light of this persistent wild type; and a powerful plea for the vitalist principle that the world and all its meanings are made of the aliveness of living things. The loveliness of Jackson Lears’s language doesn’t just convey but also exemplifies his message about the beauty and meaning inherent in a living world." —Jessica Riskin, author of The Restless Clock

“Good history-writing offers up unexpected material on the way to surprising conclusions. In Animal Spirits, Jackson Lears ransacks five centuries of Anglo-American popular and high culture to demonstrate the persistence of vitalism, the heterodox conviction that the world is not divided into living spirit and dead matter but rather that agency and spontaneity are ubiquitous. As he puts it: ‘the universe is alive.’ Astonishingly, men and women in every age and walk of life have believed this: businessmen, preachers, farmers, confidence men, sexual revolutionaries, John Donne, Adam Smith, William James, Keynes. Lears’s industry and imagination have brought something important to light.”—George Scialabba, author of How to Be Depressed and Slouching Toward Utopia

"Once again Jackson Lears demonstrates his skill in turning a neglected wild card of post-Enlightenment intellectual history—in this case, vitalism—into the hidden ace it is. In exposing the medieval Western notion of an animated universe as a surprisingly persistent undercurrent running through four centuries of American politics, religion, economic theory, and popular culture, Animal Spirits will transform our perspective of the cultural matrix we inhabit."—Victoria Nelson, author of The Secret Life of Puppets

"As Lears memorably demonstrates, the belief in the significance of pulsing flows of energy that move through minds and objects has played a profound, if not often well-acknowledged, role in American philosophy and lived experience . . . A notable strength of the book is the richness of the author’s commentary on the context in which vitalist ideas emerged . . . Well-informed [and] engrossing."—Kirkus Reviews