A quarter of a century before Lyndon B. Johnson popularized the
slogan "The Great Society," Donald Davidson wrote his critique of
Leviathan, the omnipotent nation-state, in terms that only recently
have come to be appreciated. "Leviathan is the idea of the Great
Society, organized under a single, complex, but strong and highly
centralized national government, motivated ultimately by men's
desire for economic welfare of a specific kind rather than their
desire for personal liberty. " Originally published as The Attack
on Leviathan, this eloquent volume is an attack on state centralism
and an affirmation of regional identity. Davidson's work is a
special sort of intellectual as well as social history. It reveals
an extraordinary mastery of the literature on regionalism in the
United States, with special emphasis on the work on Rupert Vance
and Howard Odum in the social sciences. Davidson looks at
regionalism in arts, literature, and education. He favors
agriculture over industrialization, and "the hinterland" over
cities, examining along the way varying historical memories, the
dilemma of Southern liberals, and the choice of expedience or
principles. His book is a forceful and commanding challenge to
those who would push for central authority at the sacrifice of
individual and regional identity. Davidson concludes with a
devastating critique of nationalism leading to a supra-nationalism.
Ultimately, the heterogeneity of human desires comes up against the
uniformity of world systems and world states. Davidson offers
instead a broad world of intellectual history and commentary in
which individualism allies itself with communities as a means for
stemming the tide of collectivism and its base in a world state.
For Davidson, Leviathan, the monstrous state, is a devourer, not a
savior. As several peoples rise to strike down their own
Leviathans, this courageous book may be better understood now than
it was in 1938. Donald Davidson was part of that movement in
American letters known as the Southern Agrarians. He was a poet,
critic, historian, and political analyst. He spent most of his life
at Vanderbilt University, and was himself born in central
Tennessee. He is best known as the author of The Tall Men (1927)
and a collection of essays, Still Rebels, Still Yankees (1957).
General
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