influence; few recent books on European intellectual history have been as widely read and as generously received. It is that rare work of scholarship that is also a work of literature--a masterpiece of persuasion that has done more to shape the current image of the enlightenment than any other book. Despite the skepticism of some professional historians, its witty formulations have been accepted by a generation of students and borrowed in textbook after textbook. Becker's assertion that philosophies, in the "Age of Reason," relied far more upon Christian assumptions than they cared to admit, has been influential, but has also been much attacked, notably by Peter Gay. Interest in the book is partly explained by this passage (p. 47): This isolation of vocabularies of the epoch chimes with much later work, even if the rest of the book is essayistic in approach. Certain scholars consequently classify Becker as a "relativist." This "relativism" was more akin to "pragmatism" ("pragmatic relativism") as well as Saussurean linguistics and diachrony. Johnson Kent Wright writes: Political views Interviewed for the pamphlet Writers Take Sides: Letters about the War in Spain from 418 American Authors Becker supported the Spanish Republicans. He also stated his opposition to dictatorship in general. In 1910, Carl Becker assessed Progressive Era Kansas Americanization, which included state temperance amendments and legislation, as an "individualism of conformity, not of revolt." Becker added that this "individualism [also] means the ability of the individual to succeed," infusing early twentieth-century "Kansans" with "hair-triggered" vigilance that found "expression in the romantic devotion of people to the state, in a certain alert sensitiveness to criticism from outside." In addition, Becker attempted to sustain, rather than relativize, John Dewey's "effective freedom" and "negative freedom" in polities that attempted to advance both, usually under the rubric of a Progressive Era variant of proto-Crocean social liberalism. The dreaded "proto-" derives from Becker's arguments for social liberalism prior to the 1922 publication of his first (in a series) of reviews on Crocean philosophy. Dewey advocated for early twentieth-century social democracy in Europe prior to the 1920s, but Becker's perspectives on this Progressive Era endorsement as well as variegated notions of market socialism during this period remain subjects of scholarly inquiry. For his part, Dewey's "negative freedom" did not exclude ideas on degrees of free markets (which myriad socialists chastised and chastise him for). These contentions presaged fascist exploitation of Crocean philosophy and