JOSEPH FRANK. The Levellers. Pp. viii, 345. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1955. $5.00

• Author: John J. Murray
• DOI: 10.1177/000271625630400161
• Published date: 01 March 1956
• Date: 01 March 1956
• Subject Matter: Articles

180

terest

going

back

to

Norman

times

between

the

Anglo-Irish

feudal

landlords

and

the

Old

Irish

with

their

own

customary

social

organization.

There

was

the

conflict

be-

tween

the

Old

Irish

and

the

Anglo-Irish

on

the

one

hand

and

on

the

other

the

swarms

of

English

and

Scottish

intruders

who

came

in

under

the

Tudors

and

Stuarts,

and

this

conflict

was

complicated

by

reli-

gious

differences.

Religion

on

both

sides

went

hand

in

hand

with

inflamed

nation-

alism.

There

were,

not

least

important,

the

unending

jealousies

and

rivalries

among

the

Irish

themselves.

There

was

the

clergy

on

both

sides

to

keep

the

fires

of

conflict

well

stoked.

Consequently

the

history

of

the

Catholic

Confederacy,

as

this

writer

presents

it,

is

a

story

of

vain

appeasements,

fruitless

compromises,

betrayals

com-

pounded,

disintegration

and

defeat

from

which

the

Irish

spirit

has

not

yet

recovered.

The

story

has

been

told

often

enough

from

the

English

Protestant

point

of

view.

It

is

good

to

have

it

also

told

as

Father

Coonan

tells

it

in

such

well-documented

detail

from

an

Irish

Catholic

point

of

view.

WILLIAM

HALLER

Folger

Shakespeare

Library

JOSEPH

FRANK.

The

Levellers.

Pp.

viii,

345.

Cambridge,

Mass.:

Harvard

Uni-

versity

Press,

1955.

$5.00.

Basing

his

story

primarily

upon

the

pamphlets

and

tracts

of

John

Lilburne,

Richard

Overton,

and

William

Walwyn,

Professor

Frank

has

written

an

artistic

and

informative

book

on

the

rise

and

fall

of

the

Leveller

party.

Supplementing

the

writings

of

his

three

social

democrats

with

the

works

of

their

friends

and

enemies,

Professor

Frank

traces

the

growth

of

the

Levellers

step

by

step

until

the

individual

efforts

of

Lilburne,

Overton,

and

Walwyn

merge

with

those

of

John

Wildman

to

bring

forth

the

various

agreements

of

the

people.

Lilburne’s

propensity

for

martyr-

dom,

Walwyn’s

philosophical

radicalism,

and

Overton’s

sardonic

skill

are

evaluated

as

are

the

roles

they

played

in

hammering

out

the

postulates

of

the

Leveller

party.

By

appealing

to

history,

God,

reason,

and

nature,

the

Levellers

brought

forth a

political

philosophy

which

had

to

wait

two

hundred

years

before

it

found

acceptance.

This

ideology,

rejected

by

the

factions

of

the

time,

consisted

of

four

overlapping

elements:

optimism,

secularism,

rational-

ism,

and

pragmatism.

Professor

Frank

weighs

carefully

the

Leveller

contribution

to

modern

society

and

convincingly

shows

that the

Levellers

were

the

progenitors

of

constitutional

democratic

government

rather

than

harbingers

of

communism.

Their

leveling

was

mainly

in

the

political

sphere

and

not

in

the

economic

as

their

many

enemies

charged.

Professor

Frank’s

work

is

of

intrinsic

value

for

the

student

of

seventeenth-cen-

tury

political

thought

and

party

warfare,

and

stylistically

is

an

improvement

over

some

of

its

predecessors

in

the

field.

At

times,

however,

he

allows

his

enthusiasm

to

carry

him

out

on

an

historical

ebb

tide.

His

using

Lilburne’s tracts

to

substantiate

Lilburne’s

successes

is

not

always

conclu-

sive

evidence.

Presentism

also

occasionally

raises

its

insidious

head.

These

later

re-

marks

are

personal

observations

and

are

in

no

way

intended

to

detract

from

a

thor-

ough,

well-written

treatment

of

the

writ-

ings

of

three

seventeenth-century

social

democrats.

JOHN

J.

MURRAY

Coe

College

SLAVIC

COUNTRIES

ITHIEL

DE

SOLA

POOL

and

others.

Satellite

Generals.

Pp.

vi,

165.

Stanford,

Calif.:

Stanford

University

Press,

1955.

$1.75.

The

Hoover

Institute

and

Library

of

War,

Revolution,

and

Peace,

under

the

able

guidance

of

its

chairman,

Harold

H.

Fisher,

and

its

director,

C.

Easton

Roth-

well,

and

with

the

aid

of

the

Carnegie

Corporation,

is

currently

engaged

in

the

preparation

of

studies

designed

&dquo;to

describe

the

world

revolution

of

our

time

and

its

consequences

for

world

politics

and

na-

tional

policy.&dquo;

The

monographs

in

print

to

date

are

grouped

under

five

headings:

General,

Elites,

Symbols,

Communities,

and

Institutions.

Since

the

&dquo;world

revolution&dquo;

embraces

a

series

of

racial,

colonial,

nation-

alistic,

scientific,

and

technological

changes

on

a

global

scale,

all

prospectively

of

de-

cisive

significance

for

the

fortunes

of

man-