will double…. The population explosionrnwill coincide with, and addrnto, the great migration of peoples.rn. . . This migration foreshadows anotherrnIslamic invasion of Europe.rnDemographers project the MiddlernEast alone (including Iran) couldrnreach a population of three hundredrnto four hundred million byrn2030. . . . If large numbers of MiddlernEastern and African migrantsrnswarm into Europe in the 2000srnand beyond, the result will not onlyrnbe a migration of individuals, it willrnbe a migration of Islam.rnAs Mr. Norval points out, the storefrontrnmosques where the World TradernCenter bombing was hatched are a signrnof events to come. The proliferation ofrnadvanced weapons, the Koran, and thernrealization of a Camp of the Saints scenario:rnThese are the makings of a deadlyrncombination, advanced at every step byrnbad policy decisions made in Washington.rnIn view of that fact, the locus of thernnext major terror strike might involve arnlittle poetic justice—though Mr. Norvalrnand I may find it a little too close to appreciate.rnGregory D. Palmer writes fromrnWashington, D.C.rnCrying BloodyrnMurderrnby Andrei NavrozovrnThe Rise and Fall of Class in Britainrnby David CannadinernNew York: Columbia University Press;rn293 pp., $29.95rnThe more a man of the world looks atrnthe world, the more he is persuadedrnthat not only are its political and socialrntruths rarely what they seem, they are oftenrnthe diametrical opposite of what theyrnseem. So, in one memorable episode,rndid many an Englishman, a copy of thernTimes in one hand and a cup of milky tearnin the other, remark with surprise that itrnwas a Conservative prime minister, JohnrnMajor, who first unveiled the plan for arn”classless society,” even as a Labourrnprime minister, his present successor,rnabolished the clause of his party’s constitutionrnthat had been demanding, sincern1918, “the common ownership of thernmeans of production.” A paradox, then?rnNot at all; only a repositioning of socialrnfictions. Few have gone on to reflect thatrneven as it was Major who worked to underminernthe British constitiition by lockingrnup Parliament in a cattle car boundrnfor Brussels, so Tony Blair now intends tornfinish the job, and has in the meantimernhit on the simple expedient of lockingrnhalf of Parliament out of Westminster.rnDavid Cannadine is nominally an historian,rnbut he thinks and writes like a sociologist.rnHe wants to look at the evidence,rnperform some computations, andrnarrive at a conclusion. And yet he is notrneven writing the history of a period or arnpeople, of an aqueduct or a cathedral,rnbut of what, in the final analysis, is a termrndescribing a perceived political reality,rnwhich is to say a mendacious fabricationrnby many a hand, known as well as imknown.rnWhat he has put before himselfrnis an ungrateful task. Whatever politicalrnor social reality one chooses to consider,rnwhether “class,” or “democracy,” orrn”sovereignty,” or a myriad others, it isrnquite clear that what this sort of coolheaded,rnimpartial, diachronic approachrnis bound to dredge up —even when onlyrna decade or two of history within one’s livingrnmemory, to say nothing of a couple ofrncenturies, is on the research assistant’srncomputer screen —are ossified lies andrnbroken shells of old doctrines. In thernwriting of history, as in all treasure hunting,rnone must follow hunches. You cannotrnjust dig.rnOf all the weasel concepts one couldrnmention (“freedom” perhaps the mostrnnotorious among them), “class” has arnslipperiness that is uniquely its own. Givenrnthat every society that ever existed, inrnearthly reality as distinguished from arnphilosopher’s dream, had the dimensionrnof height—with a top, a bottom, and arnputative middle —it is easy to show thatrnan eyewitness, or rather a participatingrnobserver, had four basic ways of describingrnthe society of his day in relation tornhimself He could say that he belongedrnto the upper part, which was good (beautiful,rnmoral, intelligent, well dressed, educated,rnresponsible, and of course rich),rnwhile the rest was bad (unattractive,rnfilthy, stupid, subversive, uncivilized, andrnof course poor); or that he belonged tornthe lower part, which was good (honest,rnhardworking, idealistic, loving, clever.rnand handsome, but perforce poor), whilernthe rest was bad (idle, corrupt, cynical,rnstupid, and ugly, though admittedlyrnrich).rnAlternatively, he could say that, whilernhe himself belonged to the upper part, herncould testify that this was the repository ofrnall vice (parasitic, perverted, dehided, unhappy,rnand not even noble enough to bernadmirable), while the rest of society wasrnthe repository of all virtue (happy,rnhealthy, uncomplicated, generous, naturallyrnaristocratic, and not so poor as actuallyrnto smell), with the implication thatrnthe life’s aim of any virtuous man oughtrnto be eventual devolution from that malignantrnstratum; or that, while he himselfrnbelonged to the lower part, it was thencernthat all vice proceeded (cue moral vacuum,rnunemployment and crime, prostitutionrnand illiteracy, unrelieved tediumrnand despair) and that social elevation andrneventual absorption into the rest of societyrn(bring on higher education, usefulrnemployment, better medicine, higherrnquality of life, pursuit of happiness)rnought to be the aim of every virtuousrnman’s life.rnIn the 18th century, to these four basicrnvantage points and their n-factorial, or 24,rntheoretically possible permutations wasrnadded the middle class. Even ignoringrnthis complication to the clockwork dichotomyrnof the high and the low, it isrnquite clear that much if not actually everythingrnwe know as European literature,rnpolitical economy, and social history—rnfrom Marx to Tolstoy, from Engels tornDisraeli, from Adam Smith to Lenin,rnfrom Fourier to Herzen, from Dickens tornKeynes, from Beatrice Webb to MargaretrnThatcher—is made up of one or anotherrnset of lapidary variations on what is at bottomrna simple Manichaean movement.rnAnd, in practical terms, the new additionrnchanged little of the established conventionsrnof collective or individual self-aggrandizementrnand self-abasement.rnInterestingly enough, the credit for inventingrnthe term “the middling class,”rnused for the first time in Clarissa, goes tornSamuel Richardson, second only tornShakespeare in the Oxford English Dictionaryrnfor the number of literary phrasesrnthat have become part of the national fabricrnof thought and speech. This is significantrnbecause, as first employed, the termrnwas an innovation, an admirable andrncharacteristically Richardsonian attemptrnto break out of the Manichaean circle ofrnus and them, wealth and poverty, innocencernand experience, nature and nur-rn34/CHRONICLESrnrnrn