Physics and Politics (Dodo Press) [Paperback]

Walter Bagehot (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1406504408 | ISBN-13: 978-1406504408 | Publication Date: January 31, 2006

Large Format for easy reading. By the nineteenth century British economist and author of The English Constitution. A pioneer analysis of the interrelationship between the natural and the social sciences.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Finely imaginative...a remarkable book. (H.S. Jones H-Net Reviews )

Unflinching...a perfect antidote to the omni-present, thought-destroying political correctness that afflicts our culture. (Sullivan, Gregory J. The Trenton Times )

We go to Bagehot for something that seems very difficult: the true character of political man. (Jacques Barzun ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Banker, editor, political thinker, and literary critic, Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) edited the Economist for the last seventeen years of his life and enjoyed intimate friendships with the leading political figures of his day. He also wrote The English Constitution and Lombard Street. Roger Kimball is managing editor of The New Criterion and author of Tenured Radicals (also published by Ivan R. Dee). --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 132 pages
• Publisher: Dodo Press (January 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1406504408
• ISBN-13: 978-1406504408
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,423,180 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Political correctness? Fuggitaboudit., October 23, 2007

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This review is from: Physics and Politics (Paperback)

A very entertaining book, partly because Bagehot, writing in the 1870s, is so outrageously politically incorrect by today's standards. When he quotes with approval Herbert Spencer's assertion that "the brain of the civilized man is larger by nearly thirty percent than the brain of a savage," you know you are hearing from a very different era than the one we live in.

Bagehot argues that primitive man (sorry) lived by the tyranny of religiously-based "customary law," necessary to weld the group into a fighting unit able to defend itself militarily against aggressors. Civilization itself developed because it was a military advantage, and it was thus selected for in the constant warfare that characterized those times. "Conquest is the premium given by nature to those [whose] national customs have made most fit in war." The character type valued in those "fighting days" emphasized the masculine, military virtues -- at least in those groups that survived. The problem, he says, is for a society to move beyond those ways; getting out of the yoke of customary law is a very difficult step, but eventually necessary if the society is to progress. Some societies have accomplished that, but most did not. Progress is the exceptional thing, not the norm. Those societies that have managed to advance are characterized by action based on abstract discussion, rather than superstitious conformity and immediate emotion.

The idea of societal evolution was a very popular one in the years after Darwin's writings became widely known, with human progress seen as resulting from the competition between societies. The notion of "progress" eventually became problematic, as it was recognized that it needed a more value-free definition than simply change in the direction of Victorian society. Bagehot gives little credence to such doubts, however. For him, broad progress is plain to see, noting of the doubters that "we need not take account of the mistaken ideas of unfit men and beaten races." This is cultural self-confidence of a very high order, indeed.

There is a thread of truth running through these essays, although most of the details that Bagehot uses to support that thread are anthropologically dubious, at best. But the effects of competition among human groups, and the determinants of success in that competition, are issues of continuing relevance and great current interest; it is fascinating to see the views of one respected commentator of the mid-late 19th Century, especially when they are stated without any hint of the multicultural tact required today.