The History of the Idea of Europe or Blood of the Liberals

The History of the Idea of Europe

Author: Pim den Boer

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the re-emergence of central Europe and moves towards monetary, economic and political union within the European Union, Europe in the 1990s is at a crossroads. This book puts the idea of Europe in its historical context, tracing it back to the ancient Greeks and their association of Europe with political freedom. The first essay shows how Europe became identified with Christendom in the fifteenth century and with "civilization" in the eighteenth, before nineteenth-century reformers and reactionaries made Europe the grounds for their different political purposes. Twentieth century developments are the focus for discussion in the last two essays. Contributors examine a number of "projects" for Europe against the background of the two world wars, considering recent trends towards political and economic integration. This volume provides also an assessment of the contemporary relevance of the European idea.

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Blood of the Liberals

Author: George Packer

An acclaimed journalist and novelist explores the legacy and future of American liberalism through the history of his family's politically active history

George Packer's maternal grandfather, George Huddleston, was a populist congressman from Alabama in the early part of the century--an agrarian liberal in the Jacksonian mold who opposed the New Deal. Packer's father was a Kennedy-era liberal, a law professor and dean at Stanford whose convictions were sorely--and ultimately fatally--tested in the campus upheavals of the 1960s. The inheritor of two sometimes conflicting strains of the great American liberal tradition, Packer discusses the testing of ideals in the lives of his father and grandfather and his own struggle to understand the place of the progressive tradition in our currently polarized political climate. Searching, engrossing, and persuasive, this is an original, intimate examination of the meaning of politics in American lives.

Library Journal

Packer has produced a fascinating personal history while examining why people become liberals even though their efforts frequently seem extremely futile. The author describes the life and times of his Alabama-born maternal grandfather, Congressman George Huddleston, whose brand of liberalism was rooted in Southern agrarian populism and who often opposed FDR's New Deal. Packer also tells of his father, Herbert, whose Jewish American background placed him squarely in the urban liberal tradition of the mid-20th century. His father's life and career ultimately came to a turbulent climax as an administrator at Stanford University during the late 1960s. Finally, in a brief, informative, and moving autobiographical section, Packer recounts the development of his own social and political views following his father's stroke and suicide. The author attempts to demonstrate the ongoing relevance to today's world of a political philosophy that many believe has little future. Packer's combination of personal and historical perspectives, as well as his considerable skill at conveying them, make this work both challenging and enjoyable. Written for the lay reader, it nonetheless avoids oversimplification. Highly recommended.--Charles K. Piehl, Minnesota State Univ., Mankato Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

The New York Times Book Review - Jack Hitt

[A] remarkable story...Packer nicely threads the day-to-day decisions of his father and grandfather with the larger ideas that possessed them. As the stories of their lives unfold, the often dry history of liberalism (movements, coalitions) gets told at the intimate level of flawed men straining to make an idea of the world mesh with the whimsies of human nature. This book belongs on the shelf next to Angela's Ashes, The Liars' Club, and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

The New Yorker

This remarkable memoir stands at the intersectionof personal and political history, observing the development of American liberalism through threegenerations of the author's family....Packer's generous historical sweep, earnest intelligence, and profound commitment to the subject make this a difficult book to resist.

Not a call for liberals' blood, but a recalling of it: the bloodlines of the author's liberal ancestors. His maternal grandfather was George Huddleston, a liberal congressman from Birmingham, Alabama, from the lynching time of the late 1800s through the 1930s' New Deal. And his father, Herbert Packer, was a vice provost at Stanford during its turbulent 1960s. Recalling their personal and professional battles, and his as a Peace Corps volunteer, journalist and card-carrying socialist, Packer tries to present a biography of liberal culture in the United States since the Civil War. By coupling personal details with social trends from each age, Packer shows how liberals in general and his ancestors in particular arrived at their proposed solutions for the problems of race, class and underprivileged that still plague our society. Sometimes his focus is too narrow and his position too personal. But he rightly points out that the conservative backlash to the 1960s' upheaval has grown too extended and entrenched.

Table of Contents:

Blood of the Liberals	3
Part I: The Man and the Dollar
Chapter 1: A Thomas Jefferson Democrat	13
Chapter 2: Iron and Flesh	33
Chapter 3: The Little Bolsheviki	61
Chapter 4: No Is Always Right	94
Part 2: The Sunlight of Reason
Chapter 5: A Modern Jew	131
Chapter 6: Winds of Freedom	161
Chapter 7: Golden Age	186
Chapter 8: Cults of Irrationality	220
Chapter 9: The Prose and the Passion	261
Part 3: The Age of Disbelief
Chapter 10: Free Ride	289
Chapter 11: Winners and Losers	317
Chapter 12: Twilight of the Gods	332
Chapter 13: Birmingham Dreams	352
Chapter 14: Past Is Prologue	383
Note on Sources	403
Acknowledgments	407