A collection of essays treating giants in the history of ideas from the Victorian era forward, often with a view to present applicability. The underlying theme thus runs against historicism. One of the most enlightening chapters shows how Matthew Arnold’s stance against philistinism (i.e., belief in cultural equality) grounds opposition to the anarchy of multiculturalism. In contradistinction, to democratize culture is not to treat all forms as equal but to make the better forms available to all. William James is praised for observing that truth comes not from logic or science but experience and reflections, building on Lionel Trilling’s view that the search for truth, though likely to fall short, is undertaken as a point of intellectual honor – and the probability that something good may come of it. As to Thomas Carlyle, the role of the prophet is to criticize not to construct. In transition to politics, the author welcomes TA Eliot’s view that the field is more important for the pursuit of moral perfection than physical easement; Einstein’s ‘rationalism’ may have been a scientific triumph but can be shown a political failure. The recovery of morality in politics will entail less government so that value-driven participants can act on their beliefs. At the outset, in a chapter on Strauss, Himmelfarb writes that while Thucydides preceded Machiavelli and Hobbes in seeing politics as struggle for power, contra Plato, his view that justice holds a central place distinguished the Greek historian from the modern political scientist.