the second syllable. There isrnnothing chilly about that final syllable,rnit is short, shiny, even brilliant,rnthat springy sound of a rill.rnThe sound of the full name is seriousrnand humorous: it has a malerncharm about it: it is like thernbaroque fountains of Blenheim.rnLukacs’s observations on other culturesrnalso deserve praise—and quotation.rnAsides like “it is a good queue becausernit is an English queue, disciplinedrnand good-natured, without jostling”;rnWarsaw’s “poverty has a smell that isrnacrid, not sour, like the proud poverty ofrna woman erect in her old fur coat”; andrn”in the New World we are avaricious ofrntime but spendthrifts of space” divulgernmuch about the character of various peoples.rnHis most profound insights, however,rnhave to do with historical and politicalrnprocesses. He insists, for instance,rnon the difference between nationalismrnand patriotism, which “has marked somernof the deepest rifts in the histor’ of therntwentieth century”: nationalism, as exemplifiedrnby Hitler, is populist, extroverted,rnaggressive, and ideological; whilernpatriotism is traditionalist, deeply rooted,rnintroverted, and defensive. Lukacs alsornemphasizes that the age of bureaucracy,rnand not the age of democracy, hasrnfollowed the age of aristocracy; even inrnRussia, he finds in 1976, bureaucracyrnand international Americanism have triumphed:rnrather than a corps of eliternMinisters, “there are only Very ImportantrnPersons, Important Persons, Persons,rnand, somewhere in the Soviet listsrnperhaps, unpersons.” Parallel (or is itrnperpendicular?) to this development,rnLukacs sees a rcassertion of deep nationalrndifferences, which (as in Transylvania)rnhave replaced communism andrnanticommunism as the driving force inrnwodd politics. As a result of these tworntrends, Lukacs concludes, “There arerntwo cultures in the life of the world now.rn. . . One is international; the other is national.rnOne is represented by the internationalrnlanguage of the network of business,rnof technology, of conferencerncenters, of sociological jargon, of computers,rnof telex, of aidine and airport lingo;rnthe other by the language of domesticrnlife.”rnWhile none of Lukacs’s commentsrnabout the modern world is invalid, somernare more comical than others. Lukacsrnoften uses humor to make a seriousrnpoint. Germans seem to be a particularrnbutt of his jokes, as when he writes, “Allrnover Venice pigeons rose with the sun,rnand 30,000 German cameras in Germanrnhands began to click.” Similarly, becausernof the crowd of (predominantlyrnGerman) tourists at its mountain spas,rnSwitzerland is no longer the “Balcony ofrnEurope” but rather the “I lot-Water Bottlernof the World.” Lukacs’s wit is at itsrnbest, however, when directed at the trag-rnLIBERAL ARTSrnKNOWING YOUR I;NI ;MYrnDuriiit; llie \,-.ir (il lhl2, I lioiii.is Jtffcison’s truMid William Sliort wrote him withrncronccrn that Massadiiisflts miijht dcfa.t to Ihe enemy Jcffc-rson replied tliat suchrnvvDult] be ,1 favorable development: “It would tliaiim’ tlie scene of war from Canadarnto !assacliu.’>itts, ,nid wc can i^et ten men to i;o to Massaelnisctts for everv one wliornuiil i;o to (ilanada.”rnic consequences of the Americanizationrnof European cultures. In the Gasteinrnvalley of Austria, for instance, Americanizationrnhas resulted in a conventionrncenter “as ugly as anything conceived byrna graduate of the Yale School of Architecture”;rnin German editions of Playboyrnand Penthouse; and in Thousand IslandrnDressing at the Grand Hotel of Hofgastein’srnsalad bar. Even on a ship in thernBaltic Sea, Lukacs cannot escape CNN,rn”the global equivalent of USA Today, thernceaseless pictorial bilge paraded as informationrnfor semiliterate people.”rnOne of the most amusing (andrntelling) anecdotes in Desti72ations Pastrnillustrates how Americanization canrnsoften a once-hardy people. While inrnEngland for Ghurchill’s funeral, Lukacsrnhappens into a fast-food restaurant calledrnWimpy. He recounts how a middleagedrnman enters the restaurant and ordersrna Wimpy burger:rn[H]e said to the waitress: “ArnWimpy, please.” As he said thatrnthere passed a shadow of embarrassment,rna flicker of resigned disturbancernacross his face. Irnthought that I could detect somethingrnof the same on the otherwisernneady vacuous, pale face ofrnthe little waitress too. . . . Surroundedrnby Wimpies and therncheap metallic filth of plastic dishesrnand the sex magazines, in thernmidst of this vast process of thinrnliquefaction that flicker of embarrassmentrnwas a faint sign of thernatavistic resistance of the race.rnLukacs uses such anecdotes to contrastrnthe vacuousness and malleabilityrnof modern life with an “older kindrnof humaneness.” A running themernthroughout these essays, in fact, is thernworthiness of the bourgeois values of thernpast. While avoiding sentimentality, hernexhibits nostalgia for the old-fashionedrncomforts of the Europe of his youth:rnturn-of-the-century apartment houses,rncozy interiors, good service in restaurants,rnthe Grand Mountain Hotels ofrnLocarno and Lugano, evenings at thernopera, family rituals, and holiday feasts.rnAs Lukacs wrote in an essay that first appearedrnin these pages (“Gold Gomfort,”rnFebruary 1995), the high-bourgeoisrn19th-century virtues are “a more andrnmore precious heritage as we are carriedrnfarther and farther away from [their]rntime.”rn34/CHRONICLESrnrnrn