THE WESTERN INTELLECTUAL TRADITION

With Leonardo da Vinci as a point of departure and Hegel as a finale, the authors have constructed an able and interesting structure that accounts for about 400 years of western civilization or the total period of the Renaissance, ""when the impulse to individuality"" was doomed by the Industrial, the French and the American Revolutions. ""The experience of the French Revolution and of Napoleon, the philosophy of Hegel, marks the transition from dynastic empires and tradition to nation states and charismatic authority, from revolution to the possibilities of dictatorships; and because these movements and ideas contain the seeds of all totalitarian states, of the right and of the left, it seems to us a natural close to the book -- and a natural window onto our times"":- this is the rather original concept from which the 26 chapters that follow stem -- in orderly, informed and persuasive fashion. Excellent in style, with points alertly made, this will not confine itself to a scholarly audience alone as a fresh review of the bases of our culture, for the non-professional follower of intellectual history will find rewarding.