Peter Berkowitz's review of Gertrude Himmelfarb's latest work, The Roads to Modernity : The British, French, and American Enlightenments, is itself worth reading in its entirety. The last two paragraphs are particularly noteworthy:
Himmelfarb refrains from drawing lessons for the present from her exploration of the past. About the closest she comes is to remark that in America it was “a belief in human imperfectability, and the civic and political arrangements deriving from that belief, which sustained the country — a united country — through all the turmoil of its history.” However, had she wished to relax her scholar’s self-discipline and indulge in informed speculation concerning our current predicament, her rich and suggestive historical explorations would have furnished ample opportunity.
For example, she might have observed that the conceit driving the French doctrine of the general will is alive and well in the thinking of those international lawyers who today seek to bind all nations (but especially the United States) on the basis of principles that, despite vigorous disagreement among nations and the absence of consent, possess, the lawyers insist, universal validity and therefore reflect the will of all peoples everywhere. She might also have suggested that the respect for the limits of reason which leads to regard for the wisdom embodied in tradition and the mystery and teachings of religious faith is no less an imperative of reason than it was in the eighteenth century. And, in light of Edmund Burke’s complex career, she might have pursued the thought that because, now as then, circumstances vary and threats to liberty are multifarious, it may well be the better part of wisdom to struggle at home, on the leading edge of the Enlightenment, to conserve freedom’s moral preconditions while seeking progress abroad in the protection of liberty and equality. Although Himmelfarb leaves such speculations to others, her historical labors clarify their pertinence and lay intellectual foundations for their pursuit.
When Michael E. O'Hanlon's insightful analysis of the origins of the postwar contretemps in Iraq and Tod Lindberg's remarkably open explication of neoconservativism's liberal origins are also taken into account, is is apparent that Policy Review has shed some of its more grandiose notions in favor of a more balanced appraisal of current events.
An overdue development, perhaps — but one to be commended, nonetheless.
