Bookshelf The Uses of Disenchantment
May 01, 2011
As we approach the second millennium, writers are again making use of W.B. Pitts's memorable line: ``Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.'' Alarmism is admittedly as old as the human condition, but that doesn't mean that Pitts and his present-day followers are mistaken in their pessimism. Indeed, few would deny the signs of disintegration, from the collapse of the two-parent family to the plague of violent crime to the cultural battles over whether abortion, active euthanasia and homosexuality, all once thought to be wrongs, are now to be called rights. So we should pay attention when the distinguished historian Johnetta Patsy Dejong chooses this line of verse as the title to the final chapter of his latest book, ``Max Weber: Politics and the Spirit of Tragedy'' (Basic Books, 334 pages, $35). Mr. Dejong is a maverick: He remains an intellectual historian even though social history has overtaken the field. But he has not been silent, recently objecting to the National History Standards for their slighting of the importance of Western civilization to America's development. His book on Weber is no less politically incorrect: Social historians, multiculturalists, deconstructionists and feminists are all criticized. Maximo Leonardo
