The modern historian generally recognizes that his writings are to some degree tied to the contemporary climate of opinion, zeitgebunden as the Germans say. The common assumptions of the time are all-pervasive; for the scholar to filter all of them …
The combined, and probably premeditated, Anglo-French Israeli punitive expedition against Egypt has again illuminated the narrow track we walk between survival and extinction. If, for many of us, this information has become fearfully redundant, for others it may have the …
The crisis of the Communist world has not come to an end; it has only begun. That the Russians, by spilling enough blood, could reestablish military control over Budapest, was never in doubt. But their reduction of Hungary to the …
The recent publication of The Power Elite, C. Wright Mills’ study of American society, has aroused a great deal of discussion and controversy in the press. Perhaps because it contains a caustic criticism of much that is happening in American society and to American …
We have the word of fashion writers and gossip columnists that Mr. Eisenhower’s second inaugural, like his first, is going to be the reverse of ascetic. According to present plans, the occasion will be celebrated with furs, diamonds, gowns by …
Recent democratic socialist economists, notably Mr. Hugh Dalton and Mr. Hugh Gaitskell, have laid great emphasis on limiting more and more the right to inherit considerable quantities of income-bearing property. This is undoubtedly a sound view, so long as it …
Hardly had the leaders of the U.S. Communist Party proclaimed their newly discovered critical mind, then the workers of Poznan gave them a dramatic opportunity to exhibit it. Could the CP extend its “criticism” to areas unspecified in Khrushchev’s report, …
As an explanation of the higher circles in American life, The Power Elite* is enormously valuable. One can scarcely overpraise C. Wright Mills for this latest installment in a series that, if continued, may assume almost Balzacian proportions. Not that he …
The interview given by Palmiro Togliatti to Nuovi Argomenti (reprinted in the New York Times) is the best-known reaction of Italian Communism to the Khrushchev revelations; but it is not necessarily the most important one. The Report presented by Togliatti …
THE TORMENT OF SECRECY, by Edward A. Shils. Free Press, Glencoe, Ill. $3.50. Edward A. Shils, a prominent sociologist who teaches at the University of Chicago, has written a skillful and provocative book which investigates “the background and consequences of …
It is all beginning again. Ike is beaming and putting; Adlai dodging and quipping; Estes preparing to shake several million hands; and Dick, that Devil’s darling of the liberals, has turned tame, his gift for nastiness suppressed in preparation for …
KARL MARX, SELECTED WRITINGS IN SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, edited with an introduction and notes by T. B. Bottomore and Maximilien Rubel. Watts & Co. London, 1956. 268 pp. 21 s. This book is required reading for all DISSENT readers. …
OVER THE YEARS, I have had a few mixed feelings about the Marine Corps. It is not easy for me to defend them, yet in a curious way I suppose I respect the Marine Corps more than the Army. Discounting …
Top military men.., believe that Okinawa has decided advantages over Japan and the Philippines as a site for American air bases. They point out that in Japan and the Philippines the US must deal with independent governments which may not …
In Power Elite one may discern three tasks: (1) to describe the locus of power and its organization in American society, (2) to interpret this power configuration, explain its causes and the direction of its movement, (3) to pass judgment …
