He inveighs against moral relativism, leftist intellectuals, the rise of the professional politician and the concomitant rise of political violence and war. During his narrative he argues compelling in favor of free markets, the rule of law, governmental non-interference, and at least some moral absolutes.
Indeed, one of the many ideological shibboleths absent from Johnson’s book is the sterile objectivity that precludes historical value judgments. In Johnson’s pages we are reminded that history is determined by individuals, and not vice versa as leftist intellectuals–some of the chief villains in Johnson’s work–fervently believed before and after their seizure of power in so many countries. As readers of history we are fascinated by the chief figures of the twentieth century–Einstein, Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, Mao, Nasser, Adenauer, De Gaulle, Sartre–and Johnson seamlessly weaves elements of their biography into his flowing narrative. Instead of model-oriented social science or a pantheon of ruling ideological concepts, Johnson offers us largely a history-as-biography.
Nearly of all of Paul Johnson’s books now achieve best-seller status in America, thanks largely to the initial success of Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Eighties (1983). Modern Times: The World From the Twenties to the Eighties
0 kommentar(er)
