Books, Arts & Manners: When Germany Tried Anarchy

Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider

By Peter Gay Harper, $5.95 In the study of history, to a greater extent than in any other ordered enquiry, it is difficult and at times all but impossible to distinguish cause from effect. Consequently, in the history of ideas, the historian often resorts to vague conceptualizations such as “climates of opinion” and prefers to deal with contexts and complexes of social and ideological factors. This evasion of causal analysis is a neat dodge by which the historian of ideas escapes the necessity of making judgments and assuming ethical positions. It is an especially attractive position for the liberal historian who is at heart a relativist and who always wants to run with the fox and hunt with the hounds. These well-mannered men are not fond of asking too many questions of either their contemporaries or their antecedents. The liberal house of intellect is, after all, as composite and as diverse as the Democratic Party, and the merits of present company and past bedfellows make rather forced conversation.

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Stephen J. Tonsor

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Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider

By Peter Gay Harper, $5.95 In the study of history, to a greater extent than in any other ordered enquiry, it is difficult and at times all but impossible to distinguish cause from effect. Consequently, in the history of ideas, the historian often resorts to vague conceptualizations such as “climates of opinion” and prefers to deal with contexts and complexes of social and ideological factors. This evasion of causal analysis is a neat dodge by which the historian of ideas escapes the necessity of making judgments and assuming ethical positions. It is an especially attractive position for the liberal historian who is at heart a relativist and who always wants to run with the fox and hunt with the hounds. These well-mannered men are not fond of asking too many questions of either their contemporaries or their antecedents. The liberal house of intellect is, after all, as composite and as diverse as the Democratic Party, and the merits of present company and past bedfellows make rather forced conversation.