Jon-Michael Puglionisi Book Review

Jon-Michael Puglionisi

Book Review

     One thing that can definitely be said about Barrington Moore, Jr.'s book Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World is that it is extensively researched in order to give the most accurate picture of the points that he tries to convey throughout the book. He focuses on the political, economic, and social changes in India, China, Japan, France, Great Britain, and the United States and also though to a much lesser extent, he touches on Russia and Germany. He did not put the same research and analysis into these two countries which made sense for the book. Moore also does a good job examining the history of these countries and why in some cases power shifted and in fact how it happened. He also analyzed the paths each of these countries took toward modernization. Moore did a good job of figuring out which paths could be taken by a country toward modernization. He broke these down to capitalist democracy, capitalist, and communism. His writing on communism was especially useful to me in terms of my project since it is on Cuba, a country famous for its Communist regime. While my project doesn’t center on communism, one cannot truly discus Cuba without discussing communism and Moore gives a more in depth look. His views are different from some others that I have been reading. Moore’s conclusion that in the countries where the middle-class were at the heart of the revolution, democracy formed ultimately leading to a democratic capitalist society and in the countries where the revolts came from the peasant led to fascist societies. Moore believed that without the Civil War in America, the French Revolution in France or the Puritan Revolution in England these societies would have not been able to make the changes necessary in order to progress. Moore made interesting points when speaking on the role of and the relationship between landlords and peasants. He seemed to have a very good grasp on this topic, an almost personal connection to the topic. Moore believed that a crucial factor in the “anatomy of these governments has been the retention of a very substantial share in political power by the landed elite.” He said fascism’s major cause was “the survival of a landed aristocracy into modern times.” An aristocracy is defined as “the indispensable social basis of right-wing authoritarian regimes that show a strong tendency to culminate in fascism under the impact of advanced industry.” Moore believed the problem with states dominated by landed elites was: “...to make the transition to a paying commercial agriculture without the repression of those who worked the soil and to do so the same in industry, in a word, to use modern technology rationally for human welfare was beyond the political vision of these governments...these systems crashed in an attempt at foreign expansion, but not until they had tried to make reaction popular in the form of fascism.” Moore seemed to have a thorough understanding of why a state run by the elite few would lead to unrest of the lower class and ultimately rebellion. His writing on this subject was also useful for my project. Cuba, in essence, is filled with peasants, with people who all earn the same low wages and have to wait in line for bread. Cuba is a bit of a different situation as their revolution didn’t have much to do with class. They went from being poverty stricken nation to a communist regime where everybody remained poor. Despite the fact that Cuba is communist there are still a few elite. The deeper understanding of the relationship between landlord and peasant that I gained from Moore definitely helps me to see things from a different angle when researching for my project. Overall, Moore was successful in exploring why some modes of development produced different political landscapes and further how they led to modernization and industrialization. He also very effectively used the landlord and peasant roles to illustrate and convey properly how aristocracy and a state run by just an elite few would operate and how it would likely lead to problems. The strength of this book as I stated earlier was most definitely in the extremely thorough research and unique views on political systems, not only how they operate but how they are formed as well. Moore was able to draw very interesting conclusions by using unique ways of approaching these topics and I believe that made the book even more successful in getting his points across.