Critics Appraise New Hughes Book

Associate professors Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. '38, and Henry d. Aiken agreed last night that the prospect for western civilization is not as bleak as Assistant Professor H. Stuart Hughes thinks. In a Kirkland House Forum on Hughes' recent book, "An Essay on Our Times," both Schlesinger and Aiken declared that Hughes' diagnosis of the West represented the "failure of nerve" on the part of a few intellectuals, rather than a just observation of the current of the times.

Hughes, in defending his book, reitreated his thesis that the cultural vitally of our civilization is gone, and that some form of corporatism or universal rate must follow. Though admitting the selectivity of his historical material, Hughes defended the validity of broad historical thinking, a position which Aiken severely questioned.