George Lichtheim is missing. You may not have noticed, especially if you don’t peruse political journals from the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s (or didn’t read them back then). You may have noticed if the history of the left matters to you. If you don’t know his work and the future of the left is of concern to you, you should miss him too.

Lichtheim was an independent intellectual spirit—the real thing, not the self-announced sort. His histories of socialism and Marxism are among the most intelligent that we have. They are works of learning, insight, critical engagement. Even if you would dispute him on something or many things, you’ll feel smarter for the disagreement. He didn’t just gobble a few secondary sources and then blurt “expertise”; he didn’t seek to display theoretical acumen by spry style and self-congratulating “irony.” Footnotes didn’t frighten him. His friend Walter Laqueur reports an idiosyncratic but appealing quality: Lichtheim would not quote a book he didn’t...

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