universalist ideas from the 19th-centurynEnghshmen James Mill and John Bright,nas Link shows, not from any Protestantncreed.nIn line with his overall cosmetic project,nHeckscher has Wilson battling anti-Semitismnto get Louis Brandeis confirmednas a Supreme Court justice inn1916. We are shown a Wilson “entirelynwithout religious prejudice,” who wasnappalled by such atavistic hate. ThoughnWilson may have been religiously tolerantnif not indifferent, he certainly despisednJews socially, a fact that other biographersnhave acknowledged. And thenfight over Brandeis had far less to donwith his Jewish antecedents than withnthe justified fear that this labor unionnadvocate would not be a dispassionatenjudge in labor cases. Moreover, Heckscherncannot get on the subject of warnwithout thrusting his own Utopian conceitsninto Wilson’s mouth. He does sonmost ludicrously when he depicts thennine-year-old Woodrow standing in thenruins of the fallen Confederacy piningnfor “an integrated world order.” Whynis it so hard to find a biography explainingnwhat made Woodrow Wilson tick?nPerhaps it will take nothing less than ancounterrevolution to change the situation.nPaul Gottfried is a professor of politicsnat Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown,nPennsylvania.nThe DemocraticnTrajectorynby William R. HawkinsnThe Military Revolution andnPolitical Change: Origins ofnDemocracy and Autocracy innEarly Modern Europenby Brian M. DowningnPrinceton: Princeton University Press;n308 pp., $50.00nIt is common in liberal and neoconservativencircles to argue that thenUnited States should foster democracynaround the world to enhance its own securitynbecause “democracies don’t fightneach other.” At the same time, morentraditional conservative critics call for anreturn to classical republicanism, whichnthey believe will produce, among othernthings, peace as America retreats fromn”empire.” Implicit in both argumentsnis the notion that nations have no objectivenforeign policy or security interestsnwith which its statesmen, regardlessnof the constitutional form of their governments,nmust contend. The ghost ofnThomas Paine is evident behind thisnidea. Paine believed that “war is the systemnof Government on the old construction.n. . . Man is not the enemy ofnMan.” The “old construction” to whichnhe refers is the military-bureaucratic absolutismnthat was overthrown in Francenin 1789 and of which Brian M. Downingnnow writes.nThe Military Revolution and PoliticalnChange is a refreshing return to a realisticnview of political history. Not thatnDowning doesn’t have a constitutionalnpreference: he is clearly a partisan ofn”liberal democracy,” and the theme ofnhis book is how certain states (England,nSweden, Holland) managed to maintainna “democratic trajectory” during thenconstant wars of the early modern eran(the 16th to the 18th centuries). Hisnrealism derives from his acceptance ofnconflict as an inescapable aspect of internationalnrelations, as a force thatnmolds governments whose first responsibilitynis to meet the security needs ofntheir nations. Though he considersnthose states fortunate that managed tonsurvive and prosper without resorting tonautocracy, he does not condemn thosenthat deviated from the liberal path undernpressure:nThe HohenzoUerns and Bourbonsnfaced an increasingly dangerousninternational environment. . . .nNo latter-day Cincinnatus couldnhelp here by assuming temporarynpower, defeating the foreign danger,nthen retiring to his farm.nWar became a more or less permanentnstate of affairs, and remainednso for centuries… a permanent,nextractive state had to benbuilt, and given the circumstances,nthis necessarily involvednthe destruction of the estates andnthe rest of constitutional government.nThe choice was less betweenngood and evil than betweenncontinued independence and lossnof sovereignty.nDowning notes that the absolutist ornnnroyalist outlook extended beyond crownnand court:nWithin the nobility, gentry andnburghers were numerous adherentsnof the “national security” position,nwhose support came fromna sober assessment of internationalnrealities; survival was indeednimperiled without military andnconstitutional change.nDowning offers six case studies tonmake his point: Prussia, France, Poland,nEngland, Sweden, and the Dutch Republic.nHe sees medieval constitutionalismnas the source of later democraticnmomentum, the main liberal featuresnof the medieval period being decentralizedngovernment, property rights, andnthe rule of law. If these institutions survivednthe stress of war, then society hadna chance to travel the bumpy road tonmodern democracy.nDowning does not equate democracynwith the bourgeoisie. He finds the commercialnclasses to have been quite adaptable,ncapable of prospering under constitutionalismnand absolutism since bothnsystems valued and promoted economicngrowth through mercantilist policies. Insteadnhe cites the influence of the “littlenappreciated virtues” of the medieval pastnin the development of democratic institutionsnin early modern Europe.nNational economic success played anmajor role in determining whether anstate would have to resort to extraconstitutionalnmeasures (mainly new ornunauthorized taxes) to meet its securitynneeds. The Military Revolution producednlarge professional armies reliantnupon artillery and extensive supply networks.nWars became protracted andnmuch more expensive. The self-supportingnknightly warrior-class had lostnon the battlefield (the only debating forumnthat counted) even before the appearancenof firearms, the victims of welldrilledninfantry with pikes and longbowsnthat were often city militias. But thenMilitary Revolution quickly outgrew thencapacity of city-states to wage war successfully.n”[W]here war needs could be metnwithout mobilizing drastic proportionsnof national resources . . . conflict withnthe constitution was much lighter,”nDowning argues. The wealth of Englandnand Holland could support greatnpower within a liberal framework. However,nafter the mercantilist policies ofnOCTOBER 1992/35n