The Library of conservative thought

A revision, to July 1914, of the chapters relating to the nation and the state from the author's treatise on "Political science and comparative constitutional law" published in 1890. cf. Pref.

"Based on the fifth edition of the Swiss original (1948) with only slight alterations made for the American and British readers." Includes bibliographical references.

A quarter of a century before Lyndon B. Johnson popularized the slogan "The Great Society," Donald Davidson wrote his critique of Leviathan, the omnipotent nation-state, in terms that only recently have come to be appreciated. "Leviathan is the idea of the Great Society, organized under a single, complex, but strong and highly centralized national government, motivated ultimately by men's desire for economic welfare of a specific kind rather than their desire for personal liberty. " Originally published as The Attack on Leviathan, this eloquent volume is an attack on state centralism and an affirmation of regional identity. Davidson's work is a special sort of intellectual as well as social history. It reveals an extraordinary mastery of the literature on regionalism in the United States, with special emphasis on the work on Rupert Vance and Howard Odum in the social sciences. Davidson looks at regionalism in arts, literature, and education. He favors agriculture over industrialization, and "the hinterland" over cities, examining along the way varying historical memories, the dilemma of Southern liberals, and the choice of expedience or principles. His book is a forceful and commanding challenge to those who would push for central authority at the sacrifice of individual and regional identity. Davidson concludes with a devastating critique of nationalism leading to a supra-nationalism. Ultimately, the heterogeneity of human desires comes up against the uniformity of world systems and world states. Davidson offers instead a broad world of intellectual history and commentary in which individualism allies itself with communities as a means for stemming the tide of collectivism and its base in a world state. For Davidson, Leviathan, the monstrous state, is a devourer, not a savior. As several peoples rise to strike down their own Leviathans, this courageous book may be better understood now than it was in 1938. Donald Davidson was part of that movement in American letters known as the Southern Agrarians. He was a poet, critic, historian, and political analyst. He spent most of his life at Vanderbilt University, and was himself born in central Tennessee. He is best known as the author of The Tall Men (1927) and a collection of essays, Still Rebels, Still Yankees (1957).

One of the most important developments of Western civilization has been the growth of historical consciousness. Consciously or not, history has become a form of thought applied to every facet of human experience; every field of human action can be studied, described, or understood through its history. In this extraordinary analysis of the meaning of the remembered past, John Lukacs discusses the evolution of historical consciousness since its first emergence about three centuries ago.

Wilhelm Roepke may have been the soundest economist of the twentieth century. He understood the limitations as well as the strengths of his discipline. Economists are often tempted to take the easy way out, by denying reality to aspects of human existence and reducing them to arbitrary and subjective tastes and preferences. Roepke never does this, and this is his strength. He realizes that all of these are legitimate aspects of human experience which must be satisfied in a balanced and harmonious social existence. Nature, sex, religion, beauty, and politics are all meaningful as parts of the whole. Problems occur only when each segment attempts to become the whole. THe original title of this book, Civitas Humana, contains a double meaning. It promises a treatment of questions fundamental not only to human society but also to humane society. The volume combines distinct aspects of life. Half of the book is devoted to questions of economic and social life. The other half examines spiritual and national life. Chapters include "Moral Foundations," "The Place of Science in the City of Man," "Counterweights to the State," "Congestion and Proletarianisation of Society," and "Economic System and International New Order." Although Roepke recognized the validity of the nation in the modern world, he was constantly trying to find the smaller agencies within society in which real allegiances and loyalties were to be developed. His ideas continue to be of significance. As described by William F. Campbell in the new introduction, The Moral Foundations of Civil Society is a necessary addition to the libraries of economists, sociologists, theologians, and philosophers. -- from back cover.