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How to Read a Society

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In the days—simultaneously not so very long ago and in the ancient past—when communism seemed a permanent feature of the political landscape, I traveled extensively on the other side of the looking glass that divided the world into two opposed camps. I did not take with me as literary guide and compass to my travels one of the Marxist-Leninist "classics": not because the works of Marx and Lenin failed to explain anything I found through that looking glass, but because the explanation they offered was all too obvious and self-evident. If it was difficult for a visitor to find anything to eat impromptu in Moscow, Havana, Tirana, Bucharest, or Pyongyang, it took little effort to understand the connection of this difficulty with the vulgar anti-commercialism of Saint Karl and Saint Vladimir. Indeed, it would have taken all the ingenuity of the cleverest academics not to have understood it. Finally, a reason to check your email. Sign up for our free newsletter today. I took with me instead

How to Read a Society Theodore Dalrymple How to Read a Society / The Social Order , Arts and Culture April 01, 2000 / Share / From the Magazine / The Social Order , Arts and Culture Spring 2000 / Share I n the days-simultaneously not so very long ago and in the ancient past-when communism seemed a permanent feature of the political landscape, I traveled extensively on the other side of the looking glass that divided the world into two opposed camps. I did not take with me as literary guide and compass to my travels one of the Marxist-Leninist "classics": not because the works of Marx and Lenin

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