Nisbet, Robert - Ernest Gellner (review date 1977)

Ernest Gellner (review date 1977)

SOURCE: “Marx Upended,” in Partisan Review, Vol. XLIV, No. 1, 1977, pp. 139-43.

[In the following review of Twilight of Authority, Gellner criticizes Nisbet for overemphasizing the role ideas play in fostering social trends.]

The author of this likeable but slightly crotchety book [Twilight of Authority] is a distinguished historian of social thought. It is a book clearly inspired by an acutely, sincerely felt sense of malaise concerning our shared social and political condition. But it is very much argued at the level of social ideas rather than of realities; or at least, that is where the stress seems to be. The ills are described concretely enough, but one somehow has the impression that in the author's estimation both their roots and their remedy lie in the sphere of thought. As if to confirm one in this impression, the author defiantly tells us:

Everything vital...

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