war; the war waged by the aged andncorrupt British and French empiresnagainst Germany and the inclination ofnRoosevelt and others to side with thenformer. A very frequent element in thisnkind of thinking was anti-Communism.”nLukacs notes that Joseph P.nKennedy’s so-called isolationism, innparticular, was based on his anticommunism.nThere are more errors, here, thanncan be analyzed properly in a shortnspace. Lukacs’ picture of the isolationistsnsmacks not of the actual record ofn1940-41 but of the rationalizationsnsome diehard opponents of Americannintervention offered after the war. Innfact, many isolationists were liberals;nand what united isolationists — liberal,nconservative and socialist — was notnhostility to Britain or sympathy fornGermany (which was nearly nonexistent),nbut the view that with a modicumnof investment in defense the UnitednStates could hold the Western hemispherenagainst any attack from the OldnWodd, and could in the last resortnafford to ignore what happened innEurope and Asia. It was precisely thenEDMUN5-nBUI«EnTHE ENLIGHTENMENTnAND REVOLUTIONnPeter J. StanlisnWith a foreword bynRussell Kirkntransactionn28/CHRONICLESnfact that few believed this after 1945nthat forced diehard anti-interventionistsnto indulge in fantasies that, if onlynfor Roosevelt, there would have beennno Soviet threat. But anticommunismnwas hardly an issue in 1940-41—thenisolationists and the American Communistsnwere on the same side innopposing American intervention. Nondoubt isolationists, or at least the conservativenones, were subjectively anti-ncommunist; but they shared the commonnbelief that the Soviet Union was anweak state and that it would be quicklynoverwhelmed by the Nazis. They didnnot see it as a threat the way people didnduring the Gold War.nMoreover, many isolationists werenquite consistent and remained opposednto any sort of active foreign policy afternWorld War II, although in this casenconsistency cannot be considered anvirtue. Joe Kennedy was a particularlyngood — or, rather, a particularly awfuln— example of this: in 1950 that despicablenman advocated abandoningnWestern Europe to Stalin, an oddnposition for one supposedly motivatednby anticommunism. Lukacs’ tiradesnagainst American isolationists are particularlynstrange since he himself doesnnot seem to believe that Hider presentedna clear and definite threat to thenUnited States. He is in the uncomfortablenposition of a man who shares onenof the isolationists’ premises but objectsnto their deductions from it. Fortunately,nhis thinking on this point does notnruin an otherwise interesting and usefulnbook. ^>n** A first-rate contribution to the neglectedndiscipline of politics illuminated by Burke’snmoral imagination… [Professor Stanlis] isnthe leading American authority on thenpolitical thought of the great conservativenreformer.”n-Russell KirknThis volume has grown out of almost four decades of studying Burke.nDivided into three parts, the book covers Burke on law and politics,nthe criticism of Enlightenment rationalism and sensibility, and theorynof revolution and critique of the English revolution of 1688.nISBN: 0-88738-359-9 (cioth) 290 pp. $34.95/£26.95nOrder from your bookstore or direct from the publisher. Major creditncards accepted. In the USA call (908)932-2280.nmntransactionnTRANSACTION PUBLISHERSnU.S.A.nDepartment EB2nRutgers UniversitynNew Brunswick, NJ 08903nnnU.K. and EUROPEnTransaction Publishers (UK) Ltd.nPlymbridge Distributors Ltd.nEstover, Plymouth PL6 7P2nUnited kingdomn