Book Reviews : Power and Human Destiny. By HERBERT ROSINSKI. Edited by RICHARD P. STEBBINS. (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers, 1965. Pp. xvi, 206. $5.95.)
| Author | Victor C. Ferkiss |
| DOI | 10.1177/106591296501800454 |
| Date | 01 December 1965 |
| Published date | 01 December 1965 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
947
The
conclusion
of
Roth’s
treatise
is
a
provocative,
if
highly
speculative,
judg-
ment
about
Germany’s
possible
twentieth-century
destiny
had
positive
integration
through
political
equality
ever
followed
upon
the
obviously
unsuccessful
policies
of
suppression,
isolation,
and
negative
integration:
&dquo;If
the
Empire
could
have
been
saved
and
if
a
major
conservative
and
right-wing
liberal
crisis
of
legitimacy
could
have
been
averted
by
establishing
parliamentarianism
within
the
monarchy
rather
than
a
democratic
republic,
neither
Communism
nor
Nazism
might
have
tri-
umphed.&dquo;
Racial
extremists,
ritualistic
liberals,
indecisive
moderates,
and
militant
conservatives
in
the
United
States
would
all
do
well
to
ponder
this
scholarly
conclu-
sion
that
a
society’s
fundamental
dilemmas
often
lead
unnecessarily
to
unimaginably
tragic
results,
not
because
they
are
inherently
&dquo;insoluble&dquo;
nor
because
intransigence
is
the
monopoly
of
some
other
viewpoint,
but
because
possibly
viable
and
unspectacu-
lar
solutions
vainly
go
begging
champions.
DONALD
D.
DALGLEISH
Arizona
State
University
Power
and
Human
Destiny.
By
HERBERT
ROSINSKI.
Edited
by
RICHARD
P.
STEB-
BINS.
(New
York:
Frederick
A.
Praeger,
Publishers,
1965.
Pp.
xvi,
206.
$5.95.)
Herbert
Rosinski,
born
and
educated
in
Germany,
had
a
distinguished
career
in
Britain
and
the
United
States
as
an
authority
on
international
military
affairs,
being
best
known
for
his
book
The
German
Army.
His
great
desire,
however,
was
to
set
forth
a
philosophy
of
history
which
would
enable
modern
man
to
understand
and
control
the
ubiquitous
phenomenon
of
power.
His
work
was
never
completed
but
as
August
Hecksher
puts
it
in
his
foreword
to
Power
and
Human
Destiny,
many
of
his
colleagues
believed
that
he
&dquo;had
within
him
the
makings
of
a
significant
con-
tribution
to
modern
thinking.&dquo;
After
his
death
in
1962
Richard
P.
Stebbins
of
the
Council
on
Foreign
Relations,
working
with
Rosinski’s
notes
and
drafts,
recon-
structed
them
into
the
present
volume.
Though
he
never
went
beyond
a
common-sense
definition
of
the
term,
Rosinski
viewed
power
as
universal,
&dquo;a
quality
inherent
in
all
that
exists
by
virtue
of
the
mere
fact
that
it
does
exist,&dquo;
and
the
major
portion
of
his
work
is
devoted
to
an
analysis
of
the
roots
of
power
in
different
historical
epochs.
The
overview
of
man’s
development
from
primitive
society
to
modern
times
suffers,
however,
from
being
a
mere
pr6cis,
albeit
often
an
insightful
and
stimulating
one.
When
one
reads
a
thinker
who
con-
structs
theories
in
the
grand
manner -
a
Spengler
or
a
Toynbee,
a
Wittfogel
or
an
Eisenstadt
-
much
of
one’s
pleasure
and
instruction
comes
from
the
evidence
for
and
the
illustrations
of
the
theory,
and
since
such
are
omitted
here,
the
mere
sketch
of
Rosinski’s
conclusions
inevitably
falls
somewhat
flat.
Rosinski
contends
that
modern
industrial
civilization
represents
a
completely
new
era
in
human
destiny,
because
man
is
in effect
supremely
free
in
being
master
of
nature,
while
at
the
same
time
the
power
which
has
given
him
that
mastery
threatens
his
destruction
because
it
has
gotten
beyond
his
control.
The
essential
problem
con-
fronting
mankind
in
Rosinski’s
view
was
not
the
impossible
task
of
eliminating
power
but
that
of
developing
the
means
of
making
it
once
more
subject
to
man.
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