SOURCE: Hart, David Kirkwood. Review of On Looking into the Abyss, by Gertrude Himmelfarb. Society 32, no. 1 (November-December 1994): 78-83.

In the following review, Hart praises On Looking into the Abyss as “a powerful critique of our American academic culture.” Hart provides an overview of Himmelfarb's arguments against postmodern theory, and explains her focus on the importance of morality and virtue to the study of history.

The eminent historian Gertrude Himmelfarb has assembled seven of her recent essays into a powerful critique of our American academic culture. The result is a superb book [On Looking into the Abyss], and while she attends primarily to her own discipline, which is history, it will be of considerable interest to anyone concerned with the humanities or the social sciences. The essays complement her earlier collection, The New History and the Old (1987), and they further enhance her reputation as one of the most distinguished...