Rickety Framework for History

Politics and the Stages of Growth By W. W. Rostow Cambridge, 410 pp., $9.50 Most philosophers of history can be classified as either particularists or men of grand sweep. The particularists—such as Karl Popper, Isaiah Berlin, Mises, Max Weber—stress the specificity of man and time and place, the irreducible non-repetitiveness of events; they see nothing in history as being inevitable, and nothing that ever happens as being anticipated before it occurred. The men of grand sweep—such as Vico, Comte, Edward Tylor and Marx view history as a series of stages, each leading (or marching) ineluctably to the next, a progression that culminates in a predestined goal. It is Professor Rostow’s unusual accomplishment to have kept one foot in each of these camps.

The basic framework of his earlier The Stages of Economic Growth is retained: history moves from traditional society to preconditions for take-off, then take-off, drive to maturity and age of mass consumption. In the earlier book, under the apparent influence of high United States birthrates during the Fifties, he said the next stage would probably be the seeking of new values in larger families. In this one, the next stage is definitely stated as the search for quality, which incorporates more recent history: rising public outlays to alleviate poverty and social injustice and pollution, and facing the challenge of that portion of youth which chooses to opt out or protest in illegal ways.

AG

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Arnold W. Green

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Politics and the Stages of Growth By W. W. Rostow Cambridge, 410 pp., $9.50 Most philosophers of history can be classified as either particularists or men of grand sweep. The particularists—such as Karl Popper, Isaiah Berlin, Mises, Max Weber—stress the specificity of man and time and place, the irreducible non-repetitiveness of events; they see nothing in history as being inevitable, and nothing that ever happens as being anticipated before it occurred. The men of grand sweep—such as Vico, Comte, Edward Tylor and Marx view history as a series of stages, each leading (or marching) ineluctably to the next, a progression that culminates in a predestined goal. It is Professor Rostow’s unusual accomplishment to have kept one foot in each of these camps.

The basic framework of his earlier The Stages of Economic Growth is retained: history moves from traditional society to preconditions for take-off, then take-off, drive to maturity and age of mass consumption. In the earlier book, under the apparent influence of high United States birthrates during the Fifties, he said the next stage would probably be the seeking of new values in larger families. In this one, the next stage is definitely stated as the search for quality, which incorporates more recent history: rising public outlays to alleviate poverty and social injustice and pollution, and facing the challenge of that portion of youth which chooses to opt out or protest in illegal ways.