Book Review: Men and Nations
| Published date | 01 March 1963 |
| Author | K. D. McRae |
| Date | 01 March 1963 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206301800116 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
102
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
critical insight
into admired
theory, and
undoubted
literary
ability,
season
with
a
dash
of
nostalgia
for
the
good
old
days
(as
late as
the
1920's)
when
the
Marxist
debate
had
real
quality,
and
you
get
a
book
which
is
a
net
addition
to
recent
Anglo-American
literature
on
Marxism,
but
which
fails
to
establish
the
thesis
to
which
the
whole
historical
analysis
leads.
Marx
emerges
as
the
greatest
intellectual figure
between
the
French
and
Russian revolutions,
profoundly
shaped
by
and
shaping
that
period. The
exposition
of
the
development
of
Marx's
thought,
always
presented
in
relation
to
the
concurrent
changes
in
society, is
admirable;
the
discussions
of
historical
naturalism
and
Marx's
economics,
though
brief,
show
an insight
far
superior
to
that
of
many
critics; and
there
is
a
very
useful
account
of
the
development
of
Marxian
theory
and
Marxian
movements
down
to
1917.
The
quality
of Mr.
Lichtheim's
exposition of
classic
Marxism
is
perhaps
largely
due
to
his
ability
to
see
historically
how
both
the
problems
Marx
confronted
and
his way
of
tackling
them
were
set
by
the circumstances-economic,
political
and
intellectual---of
his
time.
But
this
historical
insight
fails
Mr.
Lichtheim when
he
comes
to
the
modern
period
(since
1917).
His
argument
throughout
is
that
Marxism
was
so
deeply
moulded
by
the
nineteenth
century
circumstances
that
it
was
unable
to
live
as
an
intellectual
system
once
those circumstances
had
been
replaced
by
others. Marxism
was
an
excellent
scientific
in-
strument
for
understanding
capitalism
and
the
bourgeois
society
of
the
nineteenth century,
but
now
we
are
in
an
era
of
"post-capitalist
society"
(p.
387),
or
of "post-bourgeois
industrial
society"
which,
"whether capitalist
or
socialist,
does
not
accord
with
the
expectations
current
in
the
nineteenth
century"
(p.
388).
"Bourgeois
society
has disintegrated"
(p.
405);
"therewith
Marxism
disintegrates
(p. 406).
It
is
of
course
arguable
that
western
societies in
the
mid-twentieth
century
have
changed
so
essentially
from the
nineteenth
century
model
that
they
are
no
longer
capitalist
economies
nor
bourgeois
societies,
but
it
has
to
be
argued,
and
the
argument
would
require clear
con-
cepts. Mr.
Lichtheim
does
not
argue it,
he simply
assumes
it,
and
his
concepts
of
capitalism and
bourgeois society
never
appear
clearly. This
vitiates
the
part
of
his
book
(Part
VI
"The Dissolution
of
the
Marxian
System
1918-1948")
which
might
have
been
expected
to
be
of
most
value
to
non-historians.
University
of
Toronto
C.
B.
MACPHERSON
MEN
AND
NATONS.
By
Louis
J.
Halle.
1962.
(Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press.
Toronto:
S.
J.
Reginald
Saunders.
x,
228pp.
$5.95)
This
is
a
book
primarily
about
philosophy.
Professor
Halle's
theme
is
the
gulf
that
lies
between
the
existential
world
and
the
world
of
ideas,
and
he
develops
at
some
length
the
philosophical
foundations
of
this
position.
A
subsidiary
theme
is
his
attempt
to
apply
the
dualist
philosophy
to
some
of
the
broad
issues
of
contemporary
international
relations.
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