How the Soviet citizen views the world, and how he will view it five or ten years from now, is a crucial question. It may determine whether we, and all people, can live in relative peace on this planet, or whether mankind will end up making our globe more or less uninhabitable. The new weapons which science and technology have provided make it all the more urgent to understand the thoughts and purposes of a people and its leaders who wield such great power.

Modern Totalitarianism has often been grouped with various forms of authoritarianism in a genus characterized by excessive discipline. Is it not true, though, that the typical totalitarian motivation of our times can be described as revolutionary rather than authoritarian? Is it not a spirit that sees in revolution a vocation, an end in itself, a way of life? A faith in the creativeness of total destruction can be found in Bakunin, Goebbels, and Lenin. Their will to revolution stems not from an identification with the grievances of a suffering class, but from an ideological rejection of everything that exists.

Settlement workers during the Progressive era were probably more committed to political action than any other group of welfare workers before or since. Charity organization workers also cooperated on occasion in political reform projects, but Robert Hunter, the itinerant radical, settlement worker, and charity expert was probably right in 1902, even if he exaggerated, when he decided that the settlement worker and the charity worker had basically different temperaments. The charity worker was hesitant to get involved with reform, Hunter decided; he had a philosophy of “don't, don't” and was constantly troubled by the fear that his relief would destroy independence. The settlement worker, on the other hand, was more often the victim of unbounded enthusiasm than of moral questioning. “He is constantly doing, urging; he is constantly pressing forward, occasionally tilting at wind mills, at times making mistakes, often perhaps doing injury, but filled with enthusiasm, warmth and purpose, without much question”.

In May, 1924, the National Council of the Partita Popolare elected Alcide De Gasperi, deputy from Venezia Tridentina and president of the Popolare parliamentary group, as political secretary. This election united for the first time in one mandate the presidency of the parliamentary organization and the party secretaryship. Under De Gasperi the party remained on center moorings, opposing Fascism on constitutional grounds and employing moderate, legal methods. But the struggle was an unequal one. The violence of the Fascists did not abate after their April electoral successes, and the headquarters of the local branches of the Partito Popolare, along with Catholic societies and “White” cooperatives, continued to be objects of squadrist attacks, especially in northern Italy. As an able opponent of Fascism both at Montecitorio and in the Trentino, his homeland, De Gasperi aroused the enmity of Mussolini and his subordinates.

A. J. P. Taylor's reputation among his fellow historians, like his writings, is marked by paradoxes and contradictions. There is respect for his learning, envy of his brilliance, admiration for his originality, and irritation, if not downright indignation, at his alleged vices. In private, his close friends assure you of his very great qualities as a historian, only to grumble at his absurdities as a showman. In public, his reviewers, even when they praise his scholarship, complain of the impossibility of seeing him as a whole

There is something Shavian about A. J. P. Taylor and his place among academic historians: he is brilliant, erudite, witty, dogmatic, heretical, irritating, insufferable, and withal inescapable. He sometimes insults and always instructs his fellow-historians.…

Almost ten years have passed since this comment was made, and Taylor is no less controversial now than before. Indeed, his two latest books, The Origins of the Second World War (1961) and the Illustrated History of the First World War (1963) have only increased his notoriety among his colleagues. As for this essay, the assumption behind it is that a historian as prolific and important as Taylor deserves a comprehensive and sober analysis, and that perhaps even his eccentricity and insufferableness can be instructive.