Equality, Decadence, and Modernity : The Collected Essays of Stephen J. Tonsor

by Schneider, Gregory L.

• ISBN13: 9781932236637
• ISBN10: 1932236635
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-08-30
• Publisher: Isi Books

Summary

Over the course of the past four decades Stephen J. Tonsor, professor emeritus of European intellectual history at the University of Michigan, has made a reputation within the conservative intellectual movement as a trenchant thinker, forceful writer, and witty, sometimes caustic, lecturer. But without a book to introduce his thought to the wider public, Tonsor has remained largely unknown outside conservative circles. For many readers, then, this generous collection, edited by historian Gregory Schneider, will serve as an enlightening introduction to the work of a man who is among the most penetrating of conservative thinkers. Equality, Decadence, and Modernity features substantial excerpts from Tonsor?s two book-length unpublished manuscripts, "Decadence" and "Equality," as well as insightful essays on conservative thought and politics. Among other pieces, this volume includes Tonsor?s controversial polemic, "Why I Too Am Not a Neoconservative." "Halfway from modernity is not far enough" , asserted Tonsor in this essay. Yet Tonsor?s critique of modernity, and much else, is complex and always intelligent. With the publication of Equality, Decadence, and Modernity, readers may now share in, and profit from, that intelligence.

Author Biography

Gregory L. Schneider is Associate Professor of History at Emporia State University. He is the author of Cadres for Conservatism: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of the Contemporary Right (New York University Press, 1999) and the editor of Conservatism in America since 1930: A Reader (New York University Press, 2003).

 

Stephen J. Tonsor taught history at the University of Michigan from 1955 to 1991. Born on a farm outside Jerseyville, Illinois, in 1923, Tonsor attended Blackburn College before matriculating at the University of Illinois. From 1942 to 1946 he served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, seeing combat in the Pacific theater. He received his Ph.D. in European intellectual history from the University of Illinois in 1952. Tonsor lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with his wife.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Editor's Introduction	ix
Prologue: Hope and History	1	(10)
Part One: Decadence
1. Decadence Past and Present	11	(10)
2. Decadence and the Machine	21	(16)
3. The Perception of Decadence	37	(26)
Part Two: Equality
4. A Few Unequal and Preliminary Thoughts	63	(8)
5. Equality in the New Testament	71	(14)
6. The New Natural Law and the Problem of Equality	85	(14)
7. Liberty and Equality as Absolutes	99	(14)
Part Three: Historiography
8. History: A Revolutionary or Conservative Discipline?	113	(14)
9. A Fresh Start: American History and Political Order	127	(10)
10. Freedom and the Crisis in Historiography	137	(14)
11. The United States as a "Revolutionary Society"	151	(16)
Part Four: Intellectual History
12. Socialism	167	(8)
13. The Use and Abuse of Myth	175	(12)
14. Modernity, Science, and Rationality	187	(8)
15. The Inevitability of Tradition	195	(6)
16. Marxism and Modernity	201	(10)
Part Five: Politics
17. Political Idealism and Political Reality	211	(10)
18. What Is the Purpose of Politics?	221	(10)
19. Why I Am a Republican and a Conservative	231	(8)
Part Six: Conservatism
20. How Does the Past Become the Future?	239	(8)
21. The Conservative Search for Identity	247	(16)
22. Gnostics, Romantics, and Conservatives	263	(14)
23. Elites, Community, and the Truth: A Little Story	277	(8)
Part Seven: Polemics
24. Alienation and Relevance	285	(8)
25. The Second Spring of American Conservatism	293	(10)
26. Why I Too Am Not a Neoconservative	303	(8)
Part Eight: Tributes
27. Joseph Ward Swain	311	(6)
28. Russell Kirk	317	(4)
29. Henry Regnery	321	(6)
Notes	327	(14)
Sources	341	(4)
Index	345