Unsound or biased readings of history create false expectations of present politics. Conquest, a specialist in Soviet Russia, reviews the Enlightenment, the French and Russian revolutions, and the legacy of Western intellectuals such as Hegel. There is a crucial distinction between the ‘law-liberty’ culture of Britain and America, and the prescriptive traditions of the Continent. Conquest demonstrates the left’s hyper-criticism of tradition and its ready acceptance of the untried. Thus the title.