Confessions of an Original Sinner

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A ``European Catholic in America,'' Lukacs is a Hungarian-born historian ( Budapest 1900 ) who has taught in Pennsylvania for 40 years. Believing that he is living during the end of an age, he explores the development of his ``unoriginal, bourgeois, reactionary'' thoughts, beliefs and convictions. In this personal history, he describes falling in love in wartime Budapest, two happy marriages and experiences as a teacher, writer and country dweller. Discussing the differences in outlook in Europe and America, this former anti-Communist, now an ``anti-anti,'' is a critic of liberal and leftist intellectuals, whom he regards as intolerant adherents of a ``corroding pessimism.'' Lukacs also takes to task American conservatives, who he feels possess their own ``particularly dangerous and immoral inclinations'' and find ``a strange and particular appeal'' in ``inhuman technology and nuclear `power.' '' There is fodder here in plenty to antagonize and stimulate all political persuasions. (Nov.)