{"title":"Colin Kidd","description":"\u003cp\u003eColin Kidd's works offer a rich exploration of ideas at the crossroads of \u003cem\u003ephilosophy\u003c\/em\u003e and history, delving into the complex interplay of culture, politics, and intellectual thought. His writing invites readers to reconsider established narratives through a deeply analytical lens.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith titles like \u003cstrong\u003eTwilight of the Dons\u003c\/strong\u003e, Kidd interrogates the shifting landscapes of belief and identity, making his books essential for those interested in the philosophy of ideas and the psychological undercurrents shaping society.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"twilight-of-the-dons-by-colin-kidd-9780691188768","title":"Twilight of the Dons","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe rise to power and eventual fall from grace of the Oxbridge intellectual.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAfter World War II, the academics of Oxford and Cambridge – the dons – formed an unusual kind of university-based, establishment-connected intelligentsia. Unlike intellectuals in other countries, often anti-establishment outsiders, the dons of Oxbridge enjoyed secure and even cosy connections with those in power. In \u003cem\u003eTwilight of the Dons\u003c\/em\u003e, Colin Kidd examines the golden age of Britain's Oxford- and Cambridge-based intellectual elites – and how their influence waned when Oxbridge’s links to the establishment began to fray.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eKidd explores a series of episodes and themes that range from the dons’ confrontations with student protesters in the 1960s to their reaction to the rise of Thatcherism in the 1980s. The cast of characters includes many of twentieth-century Britain’s most famous intellectuals – Elizabeth Anscombe, Isaiah Berlin, Edmund Leach, J. H. Plumb and Hugh Trevor-Roper, to name just a few.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eKidd describes the multiple important roles played by dons in World War II, the countercultural force of convert Catholicism and the strange phenomenon of Tory Marxism. He examines the dons’ attitudes towards America and France – as seen in their engagement in the debates over the Kennedy assassination and the awkward reception of Lévi-Strauss’s anthropology.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhen Oxbridge came under assault, it was first by a modernising, technocratic Left in the early 1960s, then by student radicals in the late 1960s and finally by the Thatcherite Right – in whose rise, Kidd shows, some dons were complicit. As deference to Oxbridge intelligentsia declined, a reassessment of the place of dons in British public life began.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67712407273708,"sku":"9780691188768","price":69.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780691188768-twilight-of-the-dons-1.jpg?v=1791855764"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/collections\/colin-kidd.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}