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The Conservative Tradition in European Thought Edited by Robert Schuettinger Putnam, 385 pp., $6.95 The Liberal Tradition in European Thought Edited by David Sidorsky Putnam, 362 pp., $6.95 We live, unfortunately, in the most political age there has ever been: but it is also, in some ways, the most politically illiterate. Power lies much more than it used to in the hands of rootless men, some of them simply ignorant, others who have deliberately discarded the work and warnings of previous generations. The arrogance of the militant young depends largely on the fallacious belief that their ideas are unlike any which mankind has known before and that their prophets are a new breed, instead of merely the latest specimens of a very old one.

Anything, therefore, that tends to introduce modern people to the political philosophers of the past is welcome. The Conservative Tradition in European Thought and The Liberal Tradition in European Thought are substantial anthologies of political writing from Plato to Churchill. They represent the mainstream of Western thought about the organization of society, about natural law and about the tension between freedom and order. Here then, for anybody willing to learn, is a political education in two volumes, a refreshing contrast with current twitterings and modish hysteria.

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Anthony Lejeune

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Alexis de Tocqueville

The Conservative Tradition in European Thought Edited by Robert Schuettinger Putnam, 385 pp., $6.95 The Liberal Tradition in European Thought Edited by David Sidorsky Putnam, 362 pp., $6.95 We live, unfortunately, in the most political age there has ever been: but it is also, in some ways, the most politically illiterate. Power lies much more than it used to in the hands of rootless men, some of them simply ignorant, others who have deliberately discarded the work and warnings of previous generations. The arrogance of the militant young depends largely on the fallacious belief that their ideas are unlike any which mankind has known before and that their prophets are a new breed, instead of merely the latest specimens of a very old one.

Anything, therefore, that tends to introduce modern people to the political philosophers of the past is welcome. The Conservative Tradition in European Thought and The Liberal Tradition in European Thought are substantial anthologies of political writing from Plato to Churchill. They represent the mainstream of Western thought about the organization of society, about natural law and about the tension between freedom and order. Here then, for anybody willing to learn, is a political education in two volumes, a refreshing contrast with current twitterings and modish hysteria.