Book Reviews : Political Thought Since World War II. Edited by W. J. STANKIEWICZ. (London: The Free Press of Glencoe, Collier-Macmillan, 1964. Pp. xvii, 462. $8.50.)
| Author | George V. Wolfe |
| Published date | 01 December 1964 |
| Date | 01 December 1964 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/106591296401700464 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
855
nation
itself
could
be
constricted
by
the
procedures
or
the
constitution
to
which
it
has
subjected
its
mandatories.&dquo;
&dquo;The
law
[constitution] is
the
expression
of
the
general
will,
that
is
to
say,
the
majority.&dquo;
This
book
was
translated
by
Mme.
M.
Blondel,
with
variorum
notes
from
the
third
French
edition
of
1789,
prefaced
by
an
Introduction
by
one
of
Britain’s
lead-
ing
specialists
on
France,
Professor
Peter
Campbell
of
Reading
University,
and
an
Historical
Note
by
Professor
S.
E.
Finer
of
the
University
of
Keele.
The
reading
is
clear
and
enjoyable;
the
translation
does
not
undermine
Sieyes
as
master
of
literary
style
and
prophet
of
the
Revolution.
The
acuteness
of
Sieyes’
essay
is
best
captured
by
Professor
Campbell’s
statement:
&dquo;Africans
are
the
Third
Estate
in
a
society
in
which
the
Europeans
are
the
privileged
orders.&dquo;
In
this
particular
case
the
history
of
the
French
Revolution,
as
heralded
by
Sieyès
in
1789,
might
properly
be
termed
the
great
teacher
of
our
times.
PETER
A.
TOMA
University
of
Arizona
Political
Thought
Since
World
War
II.
Edited
by
W.
J.
STANKIEWICZ.
(London:
The
Free
Press of
Glencoe,
Collier-Macmillan,
1964.
Pp.
xvii,
462.
$8.50.)
The
book,
edited
by
a
Polish-born
scholar,
now
a
member
of
the
political
science
faculty
of
the
University
of
British
Columbia,
contains
a
collection of
thirty-one
articles
and
sections
from
books,
arranged
under
five
headings:
The
Problem
of
Ideology,
Totalitarianism
and
Democracy,
Marxism
and
Communism,
Varieties
of
Democratic
Ideologies,
and
Nationalism.
A
Postscript
is
added,
which
pleads
for
replacing
the
&dquo;left-right
concept
of
political
relationships&dquo;
by
some
more
adequate
concept.
For
a
variety
of
reasons
the
title
of
the
book
is
misleading.
All
articles
and
sec-
tions
from
books
included
were
written
since
1950;
none
was
published
in
the
years
immediately
following
World
War
II.
Obviously,
too,
&dquo;Political
Thought&dquo;
encom-
passes
a
much
wider
field
than
the
topics
included
in
the
book.
Moreover,
but
eight
of
the
thirty-one
contributions
stem
from
other
than
U.S.
authors;
of
these
eight,
four
are
British,
and
one
each
Australian,
French,
Italian
and
Swiss.
Yet
&dquo;Political
Thought,&dquo;
without
any
qualifications,
makes
the
reader
expect
to
find
among
the
contributions
also
some
by
spokesmen
from
developing
countries
and
Communist
nations,
and
he
is
disappointed
not
to
find
one
such
contribution.
But
what,
perhaps,
is
even
more
astonishing,
recent
American
conservative
thought
is
not
represented
by
its
own
spokesmen,
but
rather
by
what
others
have
written
about
it.
Quite
apart
from
these
strictures,
the
book
is
also
disappointing
because
of
its
lack
of
comprehensive
introductory
notes.
All
told,
the
notes
introducing
the
various
parts
of
the
book
cover
no
more
than
eleven
pages
and
do
not
explain
or
fit
together
into
a
comprehensible
whole
the
separate
contributions
of
the
various
selected
writ-
ers.
Explanatory
editorial
footnotes
are
entirely lacking.
This
contributes
not
merely
to
a
lack
of
understanding
by
the
less
informed
reader,
in
particular
the
undergradu-
ate
student
for
whom,
it
is
assumed,
this
book
is
designed,
but
to
misinformation.
Thus
in
reading
the
article
by
Fred
Warner
Neal on
&dquo;Yugoslav
Communist
Theory,&dquo;
originally
published
in
1960,
the
undergraduate
or
any
other
less
informed
reader
is
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