To the Finland station

ilchinealach reviewed To the Finland station by Edmund Wilson (New York Review Books classics)

Review of 'To the Finland station' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

series of eccentric character sketches tracing the history of progressive human thought from Vico to Lenin. there are some great block quotations from primary sources but any attempt the author makes to grapple with the ideas are just embarassing. infected with a whimsy of the New Yorker essayist variety. I'm writing something v similar at the moment and am writing this review in the hopes that I will avoid the same pitfalls

Moorlock reviewed To the Finland station by Edmund Wilson

Review of 'To the Finland station' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Ah, Communism… where the hell did that bullshit come from anyway? Edmund Wilson has followed the footsteps back along the trail in a book that gives appropriate weight and attention to biography, to history, and to philosophy.

So far, the thing that’s made me go “hmmmm…” the most was this bit: “It is a proof of the divergence of the tendencies of the socialist and the bourgeois pictures of history—and from now on there will be two distinct historical cultures running side by side without ever really fusing—that people who have been brought up on the conventional version of history and know all about the Robespierrist Terror during the Great French Revolution, should find it an unfamiliar fact that the Terror of the government of Thiers executed, imprisoned or exiled more people—the number has been estimated at a hundred thousand—in that one week of the suppression of the [Paris] Commune …

Ah, Communism… where the hell did that bullshit come from anyway? Edmund Wilson has followed the footsteps back along the trail in a book that gives appropriate weight and attention to biography, to history, and to philosophy.

So far, the thing that’s made me go “hmmmm…” the most was this bit: “It is a proof of the divergence of the tendencies of the socialist and the bourgeois pictures of history—and from now on there will be two distinct historical cultures running side by side without ever really fusing—that people who have been brought up on the conventional version of history and know all about the Robespierrist Terror during the Great French Revolution, should find it an unfamiliar fact that the Terror of the government of Thiers executed, imprisoned or exiled more people—the number has been estimated at a hundred thousand—in that one week of the suppression of the [Paris] Commune [of 1871] than the revolutionary Terror of Robespierre had done in three years.”

Shtakser

rated it

Dec. 23, 2014

To the Finland station

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