SOURCE: “Finding a Usable Past, Building a Livable Future,” in America, Vol. 133, No. 13, November 1, 1975, pp. 286-87.

In the following review of Twilight of Authority, Kelly criticizes Nisbet's book as a simple-minded attack on the pursuit of equality through political means.

“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” Certainly, this is a sentiment no longer limited to the poetically sensitive but increasingly common among ordinary men and women. Nor can this confusion of spirit be attributed solely to such specifics as Vietnam, Watergate, inflation and recession, for the cognitive and moral models necessary for reconstructing personal and social life seem muddled and distant to many. On the basis of his past work (see, for example, The Social Bond and The Social Philosophers), the sociologist Robert Nisbet might be expected to be especially insightful about the contemporary predicament. But the Twilight of Authority disappoints mightily. In this work, noisy polemic...