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It is opined that perhaps no other major American thinker has been the object of so many widely divergent and diametrically opposed evaluations as Thorstein Veblen. Present-day analysts are no closer to a consensus about his contributions and influence than those of a generation ago. Rick Tilman's first book "Thorstein Veblen and His Critics, 1891-1963" was devoted to understanding how analysts had distorted both Veblen's life and his project. Tilman's recent book "The Intellectual Legacy of Thorstein Veblen: Unresolved Issues," refines the theme of its predecessor, concentrating on some issues that have divided or puzzled Veblen scholars. Particularly fascinating are his pieces on aesthetics and biography. Fascinating too is the introductory biographical essay. Tilman, along with Stephen Edgell, Russell Bartley and Sylvia Bartley, and Jonathan Larson, has long been part of the effort to revise the Joseph Dorfman biography. It is opined that Dorfman exaggerated Veblen's alienation from American life, misrepresented his command of English and the isolation of his family, overstated his libertine exploits, and harped, to the point of distortion, on his personal eccentricities. |
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