Fire in the Minds of Men
LC Class | HM283 .B54 1999 | |
Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith is a 1980 book by historian James H. Billington about the spread of ideas. Billington analyzes the ideas that inspired European revolutionary movements from the 1700s to the 1900s.
Synopsis
The book takes its name from
national socialism in 1920s' Germany). Instead the idea of equality would become the fuel for socialism and communism
.
Billington equates the two schools of thought, claiming that though socially opposed in outside appearance, in their own respective way (one promoting individualism, the other collectivism), each is striving toward establishing these mutual goals, viz. a secular humanist society that is both Marx
, the former being the social and secularist republican (anti-monarchist) individualist, and the latter the socialist anarchist (communism) collectivist.
External links
- Radical Son: Bush may not have read Dostoyevsky—but his speechwriters have by Justin Raimondo, The American Conservative, February 28, 2005
- Paperbacks: New and Noteworthy, March 20, 1983 review in The New York Times
- Online excerpts at Google books