Volume 5, Number 11 · January 6, 1966
Historian at the End of His Tether
By Geoffrey Barraclough
The Era of Tyrannies
by Elie Halévy, translated by R.K. Webb
Anchor Books, 324 pp., $1.45
The reputation of Elie Halévy rests firmly on his history of the English people in the nineteenth century, a work with which, in scope and concept, only Franz Schnabel's history of Germany in the same period (still, unaccountably, untranslated) can compare. But there was another Halévy as well, which this volume of essays and lectures, put together after his death, admirably illustrates; and although the translator, Professor R.K. Webb, is right in saying that, for readers already acquainted with Halévy's other work, these papers reflect the 'remarkable unity' of his 'intellectual concern,' it is also true that they carry him, significantly, out of the ranks of the great narrative historians and range him among the notable speculative sociologists of his day. Here, one immediately recognizes, is a man whose processes of thought entitle him to the same respectful attention as his better known German contemporary, Max Weber.
Review, 2435 words
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