POLITICAL IDEAS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.

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  • Author(s): Berlin, Isaiah
  • Source:
    Foreign Affairs. Apr1950, Vol. 28 Issue 3, p351-385. 35p.
  • Additional Information
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    • Abstract:
      This article discusses the development of political ideas in the nineteenth century and twentieth century. The two great liberating political movements of the nineteenth century were humanitarian individualism and romantic nationalism. These movements believed that the problems of individuals and societies could be solved if only the forces of intelligence and of virtue could be made to prevail over ignorance and wickedness. These two currents finally ended in exaggerated and distorted forms in the twentieth century as communism and fascism, the first as the heir of the liberal internationalism of the previous century, the second as the culmination and bankruptcy of the mystical patriotism which animated the national movements of the time.