In Bob Dylan: Prophet Without God, Jeffrey Edward Green defends the idea of Bob Dylan as a modern-day prophet, albeit a prophet of an unprecedented type. Placing Dylan into conversation with a wide array of intellectual figures, Green argues that Dylan is not a prophet of salvation, but rather a "prophet without God." Dylan speaks to the ideals that have animated earlier prophets but breaks from past tradition by testifying to the conflicts between these ideals, leading him to make novel contributions to the meaning of self-reliance, the quest for rapprochement between the religious and non-religious, and the problem of how ordinary people might operate in a fallen political world.

Jeffrey Edward Green is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of The Shadow of Unfairness and The Eyes of the People.

Preface

Introduction: What Kind of Prophet is Bob Dylan?
Part I: A Rebel Rebelling against the Rebellion
Part II: Never Could Learn to Drink that Blood and Call It Wine
Part III: Strengthen the Things that Remain
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Index