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How Not to Do a Dictionary on Conservatism
| Article
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12736 |
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Section : |
Book World
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3 / 1987 |
1,973 Words |
| Author
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George W. Carey
George Carey, professor of political science at Georgetown
University, edits the Political Science Review and is the
author of many books and articles on the American
Constitution. |
DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN CONSERVATISM
Louis Filler
New York: Philosophical
380 pp., $29.95
This work, widely touted as "The First Complete Guide" to American conservatism, is severely flawed by sins of omission and commission. Surely, if we judge this work by what the author has seen fit to include and what he has omitted--a standard normally applied to works of this nature--we see at once that it is far from comprehensive. Yet, this is only a symptom of its fatal weakness--the lack of any semblance of coherency. Certainly Filler's meandering "Introduction" offers up no workable criteria for determining what should or should not be included. Thus, not unexpectedly, the reader is confronted with baffling array of entries many of which, to be charitable about the matter, at best bear only a tangential relationship to conservatism no matter how defined or conceived. Put otherwise, the selection process used in compiling this "dictionary" is characterized by an arbitrariness verging on sheer whim, which renders the volume virtually worthless for the serious student of conservatism and critically deficient for the intelligent layman.
In fairness, it should noted that Filler in his "Foreword" does write--and this in spite of the publisher's hype--that "there is no way in which a dictionary of American conservatism can expect to be definitive." Of course, this is true. But the omissions in this volume are so egregious that Filler cannot be excused on this account. Let me deal with only a few of the more glaring instances; those which, at least, struck me after less than an hour with this volume
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