SOURCE: Crossman, R. H. S. “Vanity of Vanities: Malcom Muggeridge.” In The Charm of Politics, and Other Essays in Political Criticism, pp. 110-13. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1958.

In the following review of The Thirties, Crossman argues that Muggeridge's acserbic observations do not rise to the level of great satire because they fail to contrast society's evils with any vision of a higher good.

‘Men aim at projecting their own inward unease on as large a screen as possible. When they tremble, the universe must.’ Thus Muggeridge on his first page; and his judgment upon the human race applies with peculiar appropriateness to his own mordant sketch of this country's recent history. This scrapbook of the thirties,¹ with its strange mixture of wit and facetiousness, of debunking caricature and sharp observation, has the semblance of history. The Thirties, in racing language, is a thoroughbred out of The Waste Land by...