Research Catalog

Title

War and the illiberal conscience / Christopher Coker.

Author

Coker, Christopher.

Publication

Boulder, Colo. : Westview Press, ©1998.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xvi, 240 pages; 24 cm

Summary

Jar and the Illiberal Conscience focuses on two central themes. The first (and larger) section studies the revolt against liberalism: the challenge of German philosophical ideas between 1890 and 1945, namely antipositivism, which ended with the postwar occupation of Germany by the Allies, and the challenge of Marxism, an illiberal version of positivism that also ended in defeat - the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In the latter part of the study, the argument is extended to look at the end of the story, at the extent to which, in triumphing over its enemies, the liberal world - although still convinced of the truth of its own principles - no longer seems enthusiastic about acting on those principles. The liberal conscience no longer spurs it to action. In our postmodern world, the author argues, it makes cowards of us all.

Subject

• 1800-1999
• World politics > 20th century
• Liberalism > History > 20th century
• Philosophy, German > 20th century
• Philosophy, German > 19th century
• Intellectual life
• Liberalism
• Philosophy, German
• World politics
• Antiliberalismus
• Intellektueller
• Krieg
• Liberalismus
• Nationalismus
• War and socialism
• War and civilization
• Europe > Intellectual life > 20th century
• Europe

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

War and the Liberal Conscience -- G.K. Chesterton and the English Tradition -- Who's Afraid of Leonard Woolf? The English and Philosophical Quackery -- The Problem of Not Reading Nietzsche Correctly -- The Liberal Temper -- War and the Liberal Consciousness -- War and Peace -- A Jew on Horseback: Isaac Babel and the Russian Civil War -- Ernst Junger and the War Machine -- Curzio Malaparte on the Eastern Front -- A People Without a History -- A People with a History: Hegel and the German Nation -- A People Without a History: Liberal America and the Winning of the West -- Jung and the Reversion to Barbarism -- History and Self-Victimisation -- War and Nationalism -- Max Weber and the Destiny of the German People -- Catastrophism and the Agony of Poland -- Gramsci and National Liberation Wars -- George Orwell and the Myth of England -- The Will to Power -- On Napoleon and Napoleonism -- Bergson and the 'Elan Vital' -- Wittgenstein and the Sanction of Battle -- Sade and the Brotherhood of Man -- War and the Illiberal Unconscious -- The Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the Pathology of Hunting -- Moosbrugger, Serial Murder and the Enemy Within -- Child Abuse in Fin-de-Siecle Vienna and the Totalitarian Mentality -- The Identity Crisis and European Nationalism -- War, the Liberal Conscience and the Postmodern Era -- The Postrevolutionary Age -- The Posthistorical Agenda -- A Postmilitary Society -- Conclusion: Liberalism and the Tragic Spirit.

ISBN

• 0813333695
• 9780813333694

LCCN

98153063

OCLC

• ocm39184957
• 39184957
• SCSB-822613

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library