LEWIS COSER
well put by the young Marx that "The demand that the people should
shake itself free of illusions as to its own condition is the demand that
it should abandon a condition which needs illusion." Boorstin fails to
analyze or even depict the context in which the pseudo-reality which
he so cogently describes has arisen. Since he does not refer to the con–
ditions which need illusions, he can only come up with a few trite
moralistic and hortatory remarks. In order to make this into a fully
satisfying book, Boorstin would have had to re-examine "the marvelous
success and vitality of [our] institutions." He would have had to talk of
the horror of the arms race and the terror of the Bomb, of Communist
successes and American blunders on the world scene, of bureaucratiza–
tion and of alienation. But then a close look at
these
realities was
perhaps a bit too much even for him.
The passing of time has deeply affected Boorstin's outlook; Richard
H. Rovere, on the other hand, seems to believe that time has stood
still. How else can he justify this book which consists in the main of
reprints of topical pieces, some of them written more than ten years
ago? Who cares now about his 1953 evaluation of Harold Ickes'
Secret
Diaries-which
have been on the remainder shelves of bookstores for
years? Why should one be moved nowadays to reread his 1948 account
of Truman's and Dewey's campaign manners? fovere
is
a very gifted
journalist but he deludes himself into believing that what was once
fresh and informative in the
N ew Yorker
can still pass muster in hard
covers today. Parts of this book have an almost ghostly appearance.
Harold Matuso, "the kept witness," Sherman Adams and the Vicuna
coat, Peter Viereck's
The Shame of the Intellectuals,
Newbold Mor–
ris' brief attempt to "clean up the mess" in Washington-they seem all
so far away now that it becomes difficult to believe that they once
engaged our attention. Willkie, Vandenberg, MacArthur, Sidney Hillman
-it all reminds one of the slightly musty air of a family album from
way back.
My point
is
not, of course, directed against historiography. The
fact is, however, that these are vivid and immediate responses to current
events whereas good historiography is always mediated through subse–
quent historical experience and reinterpreted by being placed in a
context wider than was immediately available to the contemporary
observer. Slightly to retouch journalistic pieces just won't make them
into examples of the historian's craft.
There are some good things in this book: a fine profile of an old–
time New York district boss, done in the best
New Yorker
manner; an
