SOURCE: "The Question of Sorel," in Journal of European Studies, Vol. 7, No. 27, September, 1977, pp. 204-13.

In the following excerpt, Band declares that Sorel is more important as a populizer of ideas rather than as an original thinker.

The publication of Professor John L. Stanley's splendid collection (From Georges Sorel: Essays in Socialism and Philosophy) affords students of Sorel and, indeed, of modern European social thought an opportunity to address themselves to the question of Sorel's "place"—the question, that is, of the sources and importance of his system. Tracing intellectual influences is an exercise of about the same degree of difficulty as hunting the snark, and this may be the reason why, in the case of Georges Sorel, attempts to carry out the exercise have been characterized by massive and undefended assumptions, false trails and no little amount of confusion. Nevertheless, volumes such as Professor Stanley's testify to...