Willmoore Kendall Contra Mundum [Paperback]

Willmoore Kendall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 26, 1994 | ISBN-10: 0819190675 | ISBN-13: 978-0819190673

In this work, the author invites the reader to travel along with him as he investigates many of the political questions that have long confronted our society: Congress vs. the President, is it deadlock, gridlock or two majorities? The American community, is it pluralism or orthodoxy? What do Americans mean by "All men are created equal"? Who should control our public schools? Is the genius of the American people for self-government failing?
A posthumous collection originally published by 1971 by Arlington House, this reprinted edition includes for the first time Kendall's provocative essay, "The 'Open Society' and its Fallacies"--as relevant today as when it was first written. The essays, speeches, and part of a projected book included in this work direct the reader's attention to subjects that reflect the general theme running through all of Kendall's political thought--the ways that majority rule can bring about government that is sound and just.

Editorial Reviews

Review

It is a pleasure to have these provocative and percipient essays brought back into print. (Dr. George H. Nash )

About the Author

Willmoore Kendall taught at numerous universities, lastly as Chairman of the Department of Politics and Economics at the University of Dallas until his death in 1967; held key intelligence positions with the Department of State and the CIA; was a Senior Editor of National Review; and produced over fifty publications.

Product Details

• Paperback: 658 pages
• Publisher: University Press Of America (July 26, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0819190675
• ISBN-13: 978-0819190673
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,763,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Contra Kendall, March 20, 2003

By 

Martin Weiser (Dallas, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Willmoore Kendall Contra Mundum (Paperback)

A wonderful compilation. Kendall is a very intelligent and entertaining writer whose aggressive anti-Liberalism will annoy some. I should be one of the annoyed, but I much prefer Kendall to the partisan hacks and water-carriers who pass for conservative intellectuals today in Conservatism's ascendancy. Part of Kendall's appeal is that he had a sense of proportion and a sense of humor which served him well while doing political battle against the overwhelming Liberalism that he saw all around him.

For me, the two highlights of the book are "John Locke Revisited" and "Thoughts on Machiavelli." In "Revisited" the author discusses Strauss's Locke, Kendall 1941's Locke, Laslett's Locke, and Sabine's Locke. Here is a funny and instructive sentence from "Revisited": "Sabine, of course, would not himself touch a 'value-judgment' with a ten-foot pole; but the reader will not miss the point: Hobbes was the bad guy, Locke the good guy."

"Thoughts" is a review of Leo Strauss's book "Thoughts on Machiavelli." We are guided in the eight-page review to catch sight of true greatness. When a man of Kendall's obvious intelligence and scholarship expresses his awe, we cannot help but become awestruck (even if only by reflection). Here is an excerpt:

Certainly [Strauss] nowhere tells us, in "Thoughts," how the mischief the Machiavellians have done can be undone. But Strauss's silence on this point is perhaps as explicit a statement as the "situation" and the "quality of the times" call for, and what it says is: the mischief can be undone only by a great teacher who feels within himself a strength and a vocation not less than Machiavelli's own, who possesses a store of learning not inferior to Machiavelli's own, who will take the best of the young, of this generation and future generations, and, leading them by the hand without arguing with them, habituate them to the denial of Machiavelli's denials.