First, Connect: Michael Walzer's The Company of Critics: The Company of Critics: Social Criticism and Political Commitment in the Twentieth Century, Michael Walzer

This essay offers measured appreciation of Walzer's book, The Company of Critics: Social Criticism and Political Commitment in the Twentieth Century. Walzer argued only those who express solidarity with fellow citizens can persuade them to support a movement for a more equal society. Walzer developed his view through portraits of 11 writers who did much to shape the intellectual left in the West during the twentieth century. His "connected criticism" principle is a necessary but insufficient guide to the virtues and vices of modern left-wing thought. He conveyed it as a desirable tendency, not monistic doctrine, but neglected, occasionally, to delve into the political uses to which activists put the writers he analyzed.