From one of our most widely admired art critics comes a bold and timely manifesto reaffirming the independence of all the arts--musical, literary, and visual--and their unique and unparalleled power to excite, disturb, and inspire us. As people look to the arts to promote a particular ideology, whether radical, liberal, or conservative, Jed Perl argues that the arts have their own laws and logic, which transcend the controversies...