Readers of the blog will know that publisher Imprint Academic were widely criticized for the decision to publish Anti-Democratic Thought in 2008 - as it's research was funded entirely by profits from the non-existent-holiday-let frauds (as was SCIS); moreover it was published whilst Mr. Kofmel was, and is, on the run from the police in numerous countries. Though Imprint Academic announced that they scrapped the second book (Anti-Liberalism & Political Theology) in April 2009, Mr. Kofmel continues to create the deliberately false illusion that this was published by Imprint in August 2009 - it was not, and it will not be in the future.Well Kofmel's book has received it first formal review from Professor Paul Gottfried in Quarterly Review (Paul Gottfried is Raffensperger Professor of Humanities at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, and a Guggenheim recipient.). To place the review in the context of all that has happened, Paul Gottfried has confirmed that prior writing the review that he"had no idea who this fellow [Erich Kofmel] was. My review should indicate that I was hardly impressed by what I read." and that "The odd thing about the book I was asked to review is that it didn't have substance of any kind.". Similarly the Editor of Quarterly review Derek Turner was also unaware of Mr. Kofmel's and SCIS history stating "I wish I had known about all this prior to publishing the review."
The review opens
"As someone who has taught and written about the problems of modern democracy for almost 40 years, I opened this anthol- ogy edited by Erich Kofmel, of the Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society, with keen anticipation. What I found in this text generally disappointed my expectations."
"The anthology also includes a highly informative essay by an Israeli scholar, Moshe Hellinger ... Unfortunately most of the other material in Kofmel’s anthology couldn’t entice a dog to get up and move behind the stove, to use an awkward translation of a colourful German phrase. The editor’s citation of fashionable neoconservative journalists Francis Fukuyama and Jean-Francois Revel as timely critics of Western democracy and his habit of flogging a communist dead horse introduce nothing new to the discussion of contemporary democracy. What he puts into his conclusion is old hat. Indeed a random one-week’s visit to the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal should provide all of the supposed insights that are available in Kofmel’s concluding chapter.
"Kofmel prefers a mostly nondescript survey of anti-democratic types "
The editor has kindly given us permission to re-distribute the PDF of the article, if you would like to receive a copy send an email to victimsoferich@gmail.com with "book review" in the title.
"As someone who has taught and written about the problems of modern democracy for almost 40 years, I opened this anthol- ogy edited by Erich Kofmel, of the Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society, with keen anticipation. What I found in this text generally disappointed my expectations."
"The anthology also includes a highly informative essay by an Israeli scholar, Moshe Hellinger ... Unfortunately most of the other material in Kofmel’s anthology couldn’t entice a dog to get up and move behind the stove, to use an awkward translation of a colourful German phrase. The editor’s citation of fashionable neoconservative journalists Francis Fukuyama and Jean-Francois Revel as timely critics of Western democracy and his habit of flogging a communist dead horse introduce nothing new to the discussion of contemporary democracy. What he puts into his conclusion is old hat. Indeed a random one-week’s visit to the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal should provide all of the supposed insights that are available in Kofmel’s concluding chapter.
"Kofmel prefers a mostly nondescript survey of anti-democratic types "
The editor has kindly given us permission to re-distribute the PDF of the article, if you would like to receive a copy send an email to victimsoferich@gmail.com with "book review" in the title.
