An Optimistic View

As with his book on Marxism, George Lichtheim has given us a study of a centrally important topic that is both a general introduction and an advanced interpretation. The virtues familiar from the earlier volume are again in evidence: urbanity, a thorough command of the materials, and a slightly amused detachment from the warfare of ideological schools. The author is an independent intellectual, if ever there was one. And this suggests his latest book’s great merit, just as it explains a...