ture, good and evil. Of the many illuminatingrncontemporary references inrnProfessor Cannadine’s book, I would onlyrnsingle out Dr. Johnson’s view of “class”rnas equally sagacious, insofar as the authorrnof the Dictionary of the English Languagernbelieed inrn”the fixed, invariable external rulesrnof distinction of rank, which creaternno jealousy as they are allowed tornbe accidental,” by which he meantrnthey were beyond human interventionrnor alteration because they werernGod’s will and God’s work.rnElsewhere, perhaps, in Edmund Burkernif not in Thomas Paine, in Thomas Jeffersonrnif not in William Cobbett, thoughrnmost probably in the work of novelistsrnand diarists rather than that of scholars orrnpoliticians, one can find scattered otherrnadducible instances of men transcendingrnthe vicious juxtaposition. But just aboutrneverybody on record writing directly onrnthe subject, from Adam Smith onward,rnseems to belong to that line-drawing, finger-rnpointing, name-calling school of socialrnclassification which became famousrnthe world over in the wake of the Frenchrnand, later, of the Russian Revolution.rnName ‘our class, citizen! Identify yourrnclass enemy, and a small part of his money,rnof his property, and of his social prestigernmay become yours. Who knows,rnperhaps even his old dacha. “There arernmany ironies here,” comments ProfessorrnCannadine, not least among them thernfact thatrnKarl Marx, the man Lady Thatcherrnclaims most to hate, derived his basicrnmodels of social structure andrnsocial identity, models that she sorndeplores and abominates, from thernworks of Adam Smith, a manrnwhom she so admires. For the idearnthat society’ should be understoodrnin terms of collective and conflictingrnsocial groups—sometimesrnthree and sometimes two, sometimesrnexpressed in the language ofrnclass but sometimes not—was wellrnestablished as a capitalist conceptrnlong before it was appropriated as arncommunist concept. Far from beingrninvented by a nineteenth-centur)’rnrevolutionary who looked forwardrnto a proletarian Utopia and arnclassless society, it had first appearedrnin a book by a Scottish politicalrneconomist who was steeped inrnthe hierarchical view of society.rnSuch ironies aside, and apart from itsrngeneral usefulness as a reminder that thernhistory of European social thought isrnnothing but a dense web of self-serving,rnself-perpetuating, and at the same timernself-incriminating, almost childish lies,rnProfessor Cannadine’s book remains anrnassemblage of interesting quotations,rnfacts, and suppositions without ever becomingrnwhat it should have been evenrnbefore it was begun: namely, a contention,rnan indictment, or a thesis. To resumernthe analogy with which this reviev’rnbegan. The Rise and Fall of Class inrnBritain is like the concerned Englishman’srnobservation that all of a sudden notrneverything is going quite as expected,rnwhat with a Gonserative prime ministerrnmouthing Marxist slogans while hisrnLabour successor is removing Marxistrnsignposts. True enough, but the contentionrnone yearns to see proved is thernequivalent of the terrible truth that a manrnengaged in the crime of murder has twornbloody hands, one right and the otherrnleft.rnAndrei Navrozov is Chronicles’rnEuropean correspondent.rnRECEIVED WISDOMrnQuel avenir pour Vatican U? by Claude Barthe. Paris: Francois-Xavier de Guibertrn(3, rue J-F. Gerbillon, 75006 I’aris), 120 frnThe Abbe Barthe is a well-known conservative Catholic scholar in Paris. Hisrnrecent book on Vatican II, written with a critical intelligence and restraint that isrnincreasingly rare, points to many unanswered questions in the Church’s project ofrnmodernization —or self-destruction. Barthe is also on the editorial board ofrnCatholica, a solid and scholarly journal of opinion published three times a year. Arnrecent number takes up the question of progressivism and includes an essay onrntechnology by Thomas Molnar and editor Bernard Dumont’s trenchant editorialrnon relativism: “The more we travel in the direction of the glorious futurernpromised by a unified and programmed planet earth, the more we must understandrnthat we are required to pay the price . . . to make our minds supple and malleablernin order to eliminate any obstacle to the progress of the new civilization.”rnCatholica, Printemps 1999.rnThe Spring 1999 number of Catholica, “Vers Une Eglise Vassalisee,” includes arnnumber of provocative pieces by Claude Barthe, Bernard Dumont, ThomasrnMolnar, and Cunter Maschke (among others) on a set of not entirely unrelatedrntopics: the subjugation of the Church to modernist ideology, the American politicalrnideology, and several German questions (including Molnar’s discussion ofrnErnst Junger’s conversion). This issue also contains an interview with Chronicles’rneditor Thomas Heming on “the American mission.” His eloquence in Frenchrn(translated) confirms the Thurber cartoon: “He loses something in the original.”rnAgainst the Odds: In Honor of the Nativity by Harold Grier McCurdy. Charlotte:rnBriarpatch Press.rnChronicles readers, who are familiar with Mr. McCurdy’s quiet and elegant verse,rnwill wish to read his musings on Christmas. Here is the last stanza of “A ColdrnChristmas”:rnTill starlight and lovelight entirely ceasernHe lives with us, our Prince of Peace,rnAnd neither snow nor gallows canrnSunder us from the Son of Man.rnAUGUST 1999/35rnrnrn