But Sacco's book not only has dramatic force. More crucially, it has the emblematic quality of a good historical or political novel. Porter strongly criticizes what he regards as the standard historical account of the European Enlightenment. . . .
Porter does make a valuable point. . . .
Despite Porter's upbeat tone, a defensive rhetoric haunts these pages. Roth's argument for the redeeming aspects of the empire . . . The book's unevenness is the mark of a writer who tried to evoke a manageable reality and ventured on when it turned unmanageable. De Soto's argument is set out in lucid, if somewhat relentless, prose. . . . But de Soto overestimates the novelty and importance of these insights.