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A zone of engagement
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History of European Ideas Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rhei20
A zone of engagement Peter Burke
a
a
Emmanuel College, CambridgeUK Published online: 03 Jan 2012.
To cite this article: Peter Burke (1994): A zone of engagement, History of European Ideas, 18:1, 115-116 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0191-6599(94)90159-7
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/termsand-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Book Reviews
Downloaded by [McMaster University] at 19:53 05 May 2013
A Zone of Engagement, H.B., $12.95 P.B.
11.5 Perry Anderson
(London:
Verso,
1992), xiv + 384 pp., $39.95
Collections of old book reviews are not often the most exciting reading, but an exception has to be made for the 13 essays (mainly from the New Leff Review and the London Review of Books) reprinted here. Written with the author’s customary clarity and elegance, and without the dogmatism that also marked his work in the 197Os, these essays are unusually substantial, thoughful, provocative and penetrating. They also demonstrate the breadth of Anderson’s intellectual and linguistic range, as he grapples in turn with the work of Isaiah Berlin, Marshall Berman, Norberto Bobbio, Fernand Braudel, Isaac Deutscher, Francis Fukuyama, Ernest Gellner, Carlo Ginzburg, Andreas Hillgruber, Michael Mann, Lutz Niethammer, W.G. Runciman, Geoffrey de Ste Croix and Roberto Unger. He still has interesting comments to make on Marxist intellectuals (Berman, Deutscher and Ste Croix), but the Anderson of the 1980s is even more interesting on the non-Marxists, whether they are philosophers, sociologists or historians, precisely because of his combination of what the late Norbert Elias called involvement and detachment [Engagement undDistanzierung]. (It is a pity, incidentally, that Anderson has not writ&n on Elias.) The review of Ginzburg’s Ecsrusies, for example, is a rare example of a balanced assessment of a historian who has attracted uncritical enthusiasm in some quarters and at least equally undiscriminating criticism in others. The discussion of Isaiah Berlin is equally unusual in its emphasis on Sir Isaiah’s sympathy for the informal and undoctrinal as both a strength and a weakness in his work, in tracing the genealogy of ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ back to Benjamin Constant, and finally in relating his approach to his Russian and Zionist background. Anderson’s assessment of Ernest Gellner once again places a thinker in context, stressing his intellectual debt to Max Weber but noting that Gellner has concentrated on two areas Weber neglected, Islam and nationalism. On the other hand, his review of the work of W.G. Runciman concentrates on the texts themselves, entering into the spirit of the enterprise even when he criticises it, for example for failing to discuss the market when developing a theory of social competition. Anderson is somewhat less interesting than usual on Fernand Braudel, partly because the work under review is the unfinished Identity of France rather than the earlier masterpieces, but also because he soon abandons Braudel’s preoccupations for his own. There surely is a similar reason underlying the long and unusually sympathetic assessment of Fukuyama’s slight and superficial if cleverly-packaged essay on the ‘end of history’, which provokes Anderson into a fascinating history of the idea that history can come to an end, from Hegel to Habermas via Cournot and Kojtve (but not, curiously enough, Karl Marx). However often one may be provoked to disagreement in the course of reading these pieces, it is difficult to put them down without enhanced respect for both the extraordinary historical culture and the intellectual acuity of the author. Anderson is indeed a fascinating phenomenon; a man of the left who is also a successful entrepreneur, a born academic who only entered the profession in his fifties, an aesthete who prefers not to write about art and literature, an old Etonian apparently at his ease in Los Angeles, and a Marxist more interested in ideas than in their infrastructure and in individuals than systems. His essays were always lucid and penetrating, but they are now rich and mature as well. Let us hope that someone will soon give to the work of Perry Anderson an
116
Book Reviews
appraisal of the same length and penetration that he has given to the work of his elders and contemporaries, and to do it with a similar combination of involvement with detachment and of sympathy with criticism. Peter Burke Emmanuel College, Cambridge
Downloaded by [McMaster University] at 19:53 05 May 2013
The Secularisation of Early Modern Englandz from Religious Culture to Religious Faith, C. John Sommerville (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 227 pp., $39.95. The debate over the idea of ‘secularisation’ has been going on for a generation: the contributions of Hans Blumenberg and David Martin, for example, go back to the 1960s. At a time when many historians and sociologists have become increasingly sceptica! about the value of the concept, Professor Sommerville has made a bold attempt to reinstate it. His introductory, ‘state of the art’ chapter is an extremely useful one, despite the fact that the discussion is confined to works available in English. The author distinguishes four different meanings of the term ‘secularisation’, ‘depending on whether it is being used to describe a society, an institution, an activity, or a mentality’ (p. 5). He is well aware of the paradoxes which seem to be inherent in the concept, so much so that the same changes in attitudes and practices may reasonably be described either as secularising the sacred or as sacrahsing the secular. His own preference, as the subtitle of the study suggests, is to use the term primarily though not exclusively to describe the shift from an all-pervasive ‘re!igious culture’ to one in which ‘religious faith’ is only one aspect or sector of life. The central argument of this case-study of early modem England, which devotes specific chapters to space, time, language, technology, power, scholarship, the concept of the person and other aspects of the culture, is that intellectual change was a response to institutional change, not the other way round. Sommerville therefore includes a narrative account of the actions of the government between 1529 and 1688 in particular (the story is carried on to the early eighteenth century in a chapter called ‘religious responses to secularisation’). Unfortunately the narrative is a rather thin one, in the sense of telling the reader virtually nothing about the effectiveness of the orders issued by the government and too little, despite some apt quotations, about the ideas underlying the policies(which if considered in greater depth might have done something to undermine the author’s emphasis on the primacy of institutional change). Another serious weakness of the study is its dependence on secondary sources, the work of historians who often (as Sommerville is frank enough to admit), did not have secularisation in mind. Inevitably, errors have crept in [one of the more trivial ones has William Rufus swearing by the face of St Luke (p. 140) instead of the Holy Face of Lucca]. It is impossible not tocompare this account of cultural change in early modern England with the one given over 20 years ago by Sir Keith Thorn& in his Religion and the Decline of Magic, a comparison which is not to Sommerville’s advantage. As a general account of secularisation in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this book leaves something to be desired. All the same, the author’s general thesis, together with his essay-chapters on specific topics from art to science, will require discussion in any future attempt at synthesis. Peter Burke Emmanuel College, Cambridge
History of European Ideas Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rhei20
A zone of engagement Peter Burke
a
a
Emmanuel College, CambridgeUK Published online: 03 Jan 2012.
To cite this article: Peter Burke (1994): A zone of engagement, History of European Ideas, 18:1, 115-116 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0191-6599(94)90159-7
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/termsand-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Book Reviews
Downloaded by [McMaster University] at 19:53 05 May 2013
A Zone of Engagement, H.B., $12.95 P.B.
11.5 Perry Anderson
(London:
Verso,
1992), xiv + 384 pp., $39.95
Collections of old book reviews are not often the most exciting reading, but an exception has to be made for the 13 essays (mainly from the New Leff Review and the London Review of Books) reprinted here. Written with the author’s customary clarity and elegance, and without the dogmatism that also marked his work in the 197Os, these essays are unusually substantial, thoughful, provocative and penetrating. They also demonstrate the breadth of Anderson’s intellectual and linguistic range, as he grapples in turn with the work of Isaiah Berlin, Marshall Berman, Norberto Bobbio, Fernand Braudel, Isaac Deutscher, Francis Fukuyama, Ernest Gellner, Carlo Ginzburg, Andreas Hillgruber, Michael Mann, Lutz Niethammer, W.G. Runciman, Geoffrey de Ste Croix and Roberto Unger. He still has interesting comments to make on Marxist intellectuals (Berman, Deutscher and Ste Croix), but the Anderson of the 1980s is even more interesting on the non-Marxists, whether they are philosophers, sociologists or historians, precisely because of his combination of what the late Norbert Elias called involvement and detachment [Engagement undDistanzierung]. (It is a pity, incidentally, that Anderson has not writ&n on Elias.) The review of Ginzburg’s Ecsrusies, for example, is a rare example of a balanced assessment of a historian who has attracted uncritical enthusiasm in some quarters and at least equally undiscriminating criticism in others. The discussion of Isaiah Berlin is equally unusual in its emphasis on Sir Isaiah’s sympathy for the informal and undoctrinal as both a strength and a weakness in his work, in tracing the genealogy of ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ back to Benjamin Constant, and finally in relating his approach to his Russian and Zionist background. Anderson’s assessment of Ernest Gellner once again places a thinker in context, stressing his intellectual debt to Max Weber but noting that Gellner has concentrated on two areas Weber neglected, Islam and nationalism. On the other hand, his review of the work of W.G. Runciman concentrates on the texts themselves, entering into the spirit of the enterprise even when he criticises it, for example for failing to discuss the market when developing a theory of social competition. Anderson is somewhat less interesting than usual on Fernand Braudel, partly because the work under review is the unfinished Identity of France rather than the earlier masterpieces, but also because he soon abandons Braudel’s preoccupations for his own. There surely is a similar reason underlying the long and unusually sympathetic assessment of Fukuyama’s slight and superficial if cleverly-packaged essay on the ‘end of history’, which provokes Anderson into a fascinating history of the idea that history can come to an end, from Hegel to Habermas via Cournot and Kojtve (but not, curiously enough, Karl Marx). However often one may be provoked to disagreement in the course of reading these pieces, it is difficult to put them down without enhanced respect for both the extraordinary historical culture and the intellectual acuity of the author. Anderson is indeed a fascinating phenomenon; a man of the left who is also a successful entrepreneur, a born academic who only entered the profession in his fifties, an aesthete who prefers not to write about art and literature, an old Etonian apparently at his ease in Los Angeles, and a Marxist more interested in ideas than in their infrastructure and in individuals than systems. His essays were always lucid and penetrating, but they are now rich and mature as well. Let us hope that someone will soon give to the work of Perry Anderson an
116
Book Reviews
appraisal of the same length and penetration that he has given to the work of his elders and contemporaries, and to do it with a similar combination of involvement with detachment and of sympathy with criticism. Peter Burke Emmanuel College, Cambridge
Downloaded by [McMaster University] at 19:53 05 May 2013
The Secularisation of Early Modern Englandz from Religious Culture to Religious Faith, C. John Sommerville (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 227 pp., $39.95. The debate over the idea of ‘secularisation’ has been going on for a generation: the contributions of Hans Blumenberg and David Martin, for example, go back to the 1960s. At a time when many historians and sociologists have become increasingly sceptica! about the value of the concept, Professor Sommerville has made a bold attempt to reinstate it. His introductory, ‘state of the art’ chapter is an extremely useful one, despite the fact that the discussion is confined to works available in English. The author distinguishes four different meanings of the term ‘secularisation’, ‘depending on whether it is being used to describe a society, an institution, an activity, or a mentality’ (p. 5). He is well aware of the paradoxes which seem to be inherent in the concept, so much so that the same changes in attitudes and practices may reasonably be described either as secularising the sacred or as sacrahsing the secular. His own preference, as the subtitle of the study suggests, is to use the term primarily though not exclusively to describe the shift from an all-pervasive ‘re!igious culture’ to one in which ‘religious faith’ is only one aspect or sector of life. The central argument of this case-study of early modem England, which devotes specific chapters to space, time, language, technology, power, scholarship, the concept of the person and other aspects of the culture, is that intellectual change was a response to institutional change, not the other way round. Sommerville therefore includes a narrative account of the actions of the government between 1529 and 1688 in particular (the story is carried on to the early eighteenth century in a chapter called ‘religious responses to secularisation’). Unfortunately the narrative is a rather thin one, in the sense of telling the reader virtually nothing about the effectiveness of the orders issued by the government and too little, despite some apt quotations, about the ideas underlying the policies(which if considered in greater depth might have done something to undermine the author’s emphasis on the primacy of institutional change). Another serious weakness of the study is its dependence on secondary sources, the work of historians who often (as Sommerville is frank enough to admit), did not have secularisation in mind. Inevitably, errors have crept in [one of the more trivial ones has William Rufus swearing by the face of St Luke (p. 140) instead of the Holy Face of Lucca]. It is impossible not tocompare this account of cultural change in early modern England with the one given over 20 years ago by Sir Keith Thorn& in his Religion and the Decline of Magic, a comparison which is not to Sommerville’s advantage. As a general account of secularisation in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this book leaves something to be desired. All the same, the author’s general thesis, together with his essay-chapters on specific topics from art to science, will require discussion in any future attempt at synthesis. Peter Burke Emmanuel College, Cambridge