The Library Journal review shown above under Editorial Reviews gets it exactly right. The author interviewed the American philosophers listed, the only question is why. Rather than try to provide an explication or exploration of their work, she took her task to be to push her own philosophical/political agenda, and with all the subtlety of a pile driver. At times, the bulldozing approaches self-parody. She didn't quite say, "Enough about my ideas about philosophy, what do YOU think about my ideas about philosophy?" Comes close, though.

We are given no clue as to how these interviews were edited, or whether the people interviewed had a chance to see the results. The book is a translation from the Italian, which I guess means that the original inteviews were translated into Italian for the original, Italian version of the book, then translated back into English. Can that be true? Who knows. In any case, the translation is of mediocre quality. Is 'depravation' supposed to mean 'deprivation' or 'depravity'? Again, who knows.

Borradori doesn't like positivism, analytical philosophy, foundations, or systems. She likes Foucault and Heidegger, "proliferation and plurality," "hermeneutic spirals," and "humanistic solidarity." The progress of American philosophy can be measured by how far it comes to incorporate what she likes. Film at eleven.

If you want to see how it's supposed to be done, take a look at any of Bryan Magee's books, based on his probing, richly informative interviews of leading philosophers, done for the BBC. Or, for a non-interview format, see John Passmore's summaries of the work of recent major philosophers. This book is not remotely in that league.

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