The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought, i: The Nineteenth Century; ii: The Twentieth Century. Edited by Warren Breckman and Peter E. Gordon

Abstract

It is sometimes said that the names of almost all modern political ideologies are formed by words that end in ‘-ism’. The observation applies to the titles of twelve of the twenty chapters of this impressive two-volume history of modern European thought that cover the nineteenth century (think of idealism, romanticism, scepticism, utilitarianism, positivism, liberalism, socialism, conservatism, Darwinism, historicism, nihilism, pessimism, or radicalism). It has much less salience when it comes to the twenty-one chapters that deal with the twentieth century, where the titles of only four chapters contain such words (existentialism, totalitarianism, structuralism, and poststructuralism). This could mean that the twentieth century really did see the end of ideology. It could, however, also mean that twentieth-century European thought continued to remain deeply in thrall to the intellectual life of the nineteenth century, or simply that the initial premise is false. Whatever the case, it certainly does not mean that several significant themes or subjects simply fell through the editorial net. This is as comprehensive a collection of authoritative essays as could be wished for, written by an experienced and able group of contributors, and giving its readers a range of opportunities to acquire new knowledge, make new connections between different topics, or come across new ways of thinking about apparently well-worn subjects. However, readers of French Studies will still have to work quite hard to pick up connections between topics that are often widely dispersed over several different chapters. Socialism, for example, can be followed from its beginnings in France, as described in Gareth Stedman Jones’s wide-ranging chapter, to its appearances in chapters by Mary Pickering on positivism, Claudia Verhoeven on radicalism at the end of the nineteenth century, Erica Benner on nationalist thought, or Jennifer Pitts on ideas of empire, and through to Martin Jay’s excellent essay on sociology and the heroism of modern life and Hagen Schulz-Forberg’s fascinating chapter on modern economic thought and the ‘good society’ in volume ii. The same type of extended thread can be followed in such thinkers as Rousseau, Kant, or Hegel, whose ideas echoed down the ages and were given a proliferating range of sometimes incompatible evaluations as they did so (compare, for example, the descriptions of Kant in Nicholas Halmi’s chapter on European Romanticism in volume i to Joel Isaac’s informative chapter on analytic philosophy in volume ii). Although some subjects — like the state, law, and money — have not attracted as much attention in these two volumes as they were given in the period that they cover, and the ideas of some individuals — such as Victor Hugo on the aesthetics of ugliness, Jules Michelet on Giambattista Vico and his legacy, or Georg Lukács on the political significance of the historical novel — could have been given more prominence, this is a formidable and readable collection that will certainly stand the test of time.