Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain

The first full-length account of "the question of intellectuals" in twentieth-century Britain. Leading intellectual historian and cultural commentator Stefan Collini challenges the myth that there are no "real" intellectuals in Britain and offers a persuasive analysis of 'the intellectual' as a concept as well as detailed discussions of influential figures such as T.S. Eliot, George Orwell, and Edward Said.

Stefan Collini is Professor of Intellectual History and English Literature at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Clare Hall. A frequent contributor to The Times Literary Supplement, The London Review of Books, and other periodicals both in Britain and the USA, his previous books include Public Moralists (1991), Matthew Arnold: a Critical Portrait (1994), and English Pasts (1999). He is a Fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Historical Society.