Book Review: Citizens and Politics: Mass Political Behavior in India

• Author: Robert L. Hardgrave
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/106591297903200234
• Published date: 01 June 1979
• Date: 01 June 1979
• Subject Matter: Book Review

Book

Reviews and

Notes

245

after

a

long and distin,&shed career. Major chapters deal Ivith Monnet’s experi-

ences in: World War

I;

the League of Nations; California and China

(as

Vice-

President in San Francisco

of

the Bank of America: “In San Francisco,

I

made and

then lost

a

great deal of money. Experience was all

I

added to my capital.”)

;

World War

11;

the modernization of France; the iMarshall Plan; the European

Economic Community. Numerous references are made throughout relative to

Monnet’s relationships with various leading personalities of

our

times

-

i.e., FDR,

Chamberlain, Churchill, de Gaulle, etc., etc. The description of FDR is friendly

and respectful, with recognition of the import of FDR’s circle of advisers (“Roose-

velt habitually talked in general and imprecise terms: Hopkins turned his words

into precise action”). His description of Churchill is laudatory, particularly when

he discusses the details of Churchill’s control of grand sfrategy. General Giraud,

very much of

a

lesser figure, is described

as

tall, blank of gaze, inflexible in military

matters, and hesitant on all others.

As

for dc Gaulle, Monnet tells how he and the

General worked for

a

“common objective” on separate paths, and how Monnet

shunned-during the period 194043-in Washington both the men of the

Resistance and Vichy (for the former were divided by intrigues, he

says,

and the

latter lacked mobility).

This

is not an easy book to review, for it describes not one but multiple careen

-

Monnct the dedicated internationalist, Monnct the businessman, Monnet the

negotiator and diplomatic representative, etc. Nonetheless, this is an important

book, the work of

a

man who had easy access to

so

many of the most important

leaders of

our

times, who exercised over them an influence that frequently was

persuasive. George Ball describes Monnet in his brief introduction as not only the

architect of the European Economic Community but

also

its “master builder.”

Ball’s description of Monnet

is

that of

a

modem man preoccupied with

a

major

dilemma of our times- the discord bctween

our

technology with its rapid rate

of

advance and our institutional arrangements, slow in change and parochial in

character. This journal, says Ball,

“is

a

chronicle of the miracles of Jean Monnet.”

Monnet expresses in the closing pages of his work distrust

of

general ideas and

his preoccupation throughout the years with but

a

very few principles that guided

him from the beginning- to create among Europeans the broadest common in-

terest, served by common democratic institutions. The message throughout is “con-

tinue, continue, continue” in the direction of creation of

a

European State. Alonnet

states that he has never doubted the emergence ultimately of

a

United States of

Europe, although he feels it useless to try to imagine

the

political form that it will

take. Consequently, arguments about such words

as

federation and confederation

are for him inappropriate, for the “true political authority which the democracies

of Europe will one day establish still

has

to be conceived and built,” and that Com-

munity will be but

a

stage “in route to the organized

stage

of tomorrow.”

Some readers of the

Mcnioirs

may remain unprepared to elevate Monnet to

as

lofty

a

position as that assigned to him by George Ball. Others may prefer to

continue to regard Monnet

as

a

“functionalist” rather than

a

federalist and

a

Europeanist who was at the most

a

partisan of

a

small Europe,

a

Europe of the

Six. Whatever their conclusions,

all

of his readers probably

will

agree that Monnet

left behind him an impact that has been decidedly significant.

LOWELL

G.

NOONAN

California State University at Northridge

Citizens and Politics: Mass Political Behauior

in

India.

By

SAMUEL

T.

ELDERSVELD

and

BASHIRUDDIN

AH~IED. (Chicxgo

:

University of-Chicago Fress, 1978.

Pp.

351.

$26.00.)

-

India is often described

as

the world’s largest democracy. Almost

as

frequently,

many observers seem prepared to announce the demise of democracy in India, only

to be confounded again and again by the Indian electorate. Certainly the eclipse

of democracy during the twenty-one month Emergency raises fundamental questions

as

to the depth

of

democratic roots. Long awaited,

Citizens

and

Politics

presents

the results of the first and

most

extensive survey of mass political behavior in India.