Patriotism and Other Mistakes. By George Kateb. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. 464p. $35.00.

Readers of George Kateb's previous work will recognize the author's familiar voice in this collection of papers from the last 17 years or so. By turns earnest (“I know that I preach,” [p. 12]) and cavalier (“I know I am being arbitrary,” [p. 125]), Kateb is intent on plumbing the pernicious irrationalities that seduce us away from his favored stance, democratic individuality. His approach is literary, freewheeling, elliptical. Theorists fond of analytic philosophy will be impatient with how blurry and peremptory his claims can sound. Still, his is an instructive sensibility.