Of Herds and Hermits America's Lone Wolves and Submissive Sheep, Or, the American Intellectual as Loner and Outcast

Celebrated for its commitment to independence and fearless individualism, America in fact dismisses independent thinkers and nonconformists in favor of the team player, the company man, and the go-along-to-get-along mentality. This anti-intellectual mindset despises and discredits those who are solitary and reclusive. While we look up to literary loners like Poe and Melville and Dickinson, the man in the street is a compulsive joiner of clubs, and herds from university frats to the Order of the Pink Goat. To the contrary, this book is a paean vigorously endorsing America''s lone wolves, cultural hermits, and all such independent thinkers, solitary and marginalized figures, who are the cultural bedrock of the nation that detests them.