Volume 33, Number 1 · January 30, 1986
The Lost Cause
By C. Vann Woodward
Socialism and America
by Irving Howe
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 225 pp., $17.95
Lost causes, especially those that foster lingering loyalties and nostalgic memories, are among the most prolific breeders of historiography. If survivors deem the cause not wholly lost and perhaps in some measure retrievable, the search of the past becomes more frantic and the books about it more numerous. Blame must be fixed, villains found, heroes celebrated, old quarrels settled, old dreams restored, and motives vindicated. Amid the ruins controversy thrives and books proliferate.
Review, 4340 words
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