What do you think?
Rate this book
The Dragons of Expectation: Reality and Delusion in the Course of History
A landmark defense of civilization that illuminates the political degradations and intellectual fetishisms of our world. The publication of The Dragons of Expectation in 2005 reaffirmed Robert Conquest's stature as a leading intellectual and one of the world's great humanists. In the tradition of Isaiah Berlin's The Crooked Timber of Humanity and George Orwell's Essays , this book brilliantly traces how seductive ideas have come to corrupt modern minds; to often disastrous effects. In what Publishers Weekly called "a frontal assault on the pieties of the left," Conquest masterfully examines how false nostrums have infected academia, politicians, and the public, showing how their reliance on "isms" and the destructive concepts of "People, Nation, and Masses" have resulted in a ruinous cycle of turbulence and war. Including fresh analyses of Russia's October Revolution, World War II, and the Cold War, The Dragons of Expectation is one of the most important contributions to modern thought in recent years. 3 illustrations
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
8 people are currently reading
330 people want to read
About the author
Robert Conquest
132 books157 followersGeorge Robert Ackworth Conquest was a British historian who became a well known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication, in 1968, of his account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s, The Great Terror.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
October 18, 2016
“The Dragons of Expectation,” subtitled “Reality and Delusion in the Course of History,” is a strange book. Basically, it’s a series of musings by the Sovietologist Robert Conquest, made toward the end of his life. It ranges from the use of words, to the Cold War, to art and the humanities, all united by the general theme of human susceptibility to irrationality. The resonant title, taken from Norse myth, refers to how ideas (or ideologies, to use a more precise term) lead to radical visions which generate expectations that can never be fulfilled, but which create chaos and destruction as their adherents attempt to force reality into conforming to their vision. It’s an interesting, if meandering, ride, though one that largely covers topics about which Conquest had written before. But the book peaks with its title. After reading the book, I still can’t say what it was really about, and I don’t feel like I’ve learned anything at all.
The book is divided into three major sections, each containing a series of loosely joined short essays. Part I is titled “Through Reefs and Riptides.” One frustration I had with this book is that it’s not easy to parse out what topics Conquest intends to cover, and this problem starts at the very beginning. It appears this section is meant to be organized around dispelling “mind-mists” that have developed around much of modern discourse. The primary “mind-mist” is socialism and its variants, to include farther flung variants like Islamic terror, with the common denominator being “an enmity to established thought and its institutions.” From an initial discussion on this, Conquest turns to a discussion of words, or as he puts it typically and floridly, “Harpooning Some Word-Whales.”
Among targets here are uses, or misuses, of the words “democracy,” “fascism,” and “totalitarian.” Conquest’s objection is to language that is used without precision, or with deliberate attempt to obfuscate. In this, of course, he follows Orwell, whom he cites repeatedly. What Conquest does not note is that in Orwell’s time, mendacity in language was common, but the traditional logical and rhetorical forms were observed, because if they had not been, the liars would have been ignored. Even ten years ago, in 2005, when Conquest wrote this book, this was largely true.
Unfortunately, in past ten years, corruption of language, together with its evil cousins, suppression of speech not desired by those in power, and irrationality masquerading as insight, have all reached a frenzy. It’s like going down a greased slide—eventually gravity and momentum take over, finishing the trends that began tentatively not so long ago. Conquest, though, did not live to see this, or to predict what comes next. He seemed to think there was a way back. Unfortunately, today, the real choices are either to retreat from engaging the Left, or to have hard men engage in a gutter struggle, hoping that once the serpents have been strangled by means fair or foul, men of equipoise and virtue will come forth to retire the hard men and rebuild a new polity.
Or, on the other hand, are those the real choices? Could our society be changed back to value rationality, precision in language, and freedom of speech? Peaceful change of a modern society has been done before. Conquest notes “In the late nineteenth century, the English economist and socialist Sidney Webb wrote that to change opinion in England it would only be necessary to win over a few thousand key figures.” The Webbs, of course, were the founder of the Fabians, early socialists who achieved great success in this regard. As Conquest notes, they wrote books, and more importantly, they sponsored the “great Fabian efforts of conferences, summer schools, pamphlets and more permanent measures such as the founding of the London School of Economics.”
The difference, though, is that it’s easier to change public policy towards the Left. First, those on the Left seek transcendence through political action in a way uncommon among conservatives. They define the value of their life through their achievements, whereas conservatives tend to focus on home and hearth. (This is the same reason why Communists after the fall of Communism were left alone by the Right and frequently acceded to power and wealth; while even minor functionaries in any fallen right-wing government are always hounded by the Left across the globe for their entire lives.) The dragons of expectation seize the mind in a way that incremental improvement in the human condition and a focus on common, homely things can never do. This gives them a vigor and staying power lacking on the Right. Second, the modern Left never permits backsliding. Any leftist success is viewed as permanent and is defended to the last gasp with all means available. The Right lacks this tenacity and focus. Thus, peaceful change of our society back to a rational, balanced society is unlikely, even if wealthy elites were to make such a project their focus—and the few wealthy elites interested in conservative positions, such as the Koch brothers, are largely elitist conservatives, socially liberal and more interested in electing politicians than creating beneficial social change through changes in broad public opinion.
In subsequent chapters in this section, Conquest attacks a range of targets, ranging from leftist elites (“What one finds too often is an ‘educated’ class—particularly but not only in Europe—which is simply not aware of any general attitudes but its own”) to corporatism, to bureaucratic bloat and temperament (“There is a great emotional difference between ‘I am doing a useful service’ and ‘I am fulfilling a sublime mission’”), to the European Union. Though the impact and coherence of much of this is reduced by the elliptical, musing nature of its presentation, a lot of it is prescient about today. Conquest predicts exactly the current condition of the EU, as well as the multitudinous creeping deficiencies of the elitist classes. And he ends this section with “The downward slope, unless interrupted, can scarcely lead to anything but corporatism. The only probably interruption would be due to a buildup of resentment against the system. That is to say, this etatism may itself produce the catastrophe from which is purports to save us.” As of October 2016, this seems eerily prescient, though we’ll see soon enough if the desirable catastrophe arrives.
Part II, “Horrible Examples,” is a review of the Cold War, basically to again dispel myths Conquest disposed of decades before, and to note reasons for the ultimate Soviet collapse. Here, again, there is a lot of opaque musing. There’s also an entire chapter devoted to attacking four people or things not obviously linked: the historian C.P. Snow; Simone de Beauvoir; John Kenneth Galbraith; and CNN’s show “The Cold War.” No doubt each of these was an odious liar and Communist apologist. And yes, this does fit into a discussion of the Cold War. But still, it feels disjointed.
Part III, “Harp Song of the Humanities,” covers, unsurprisingly, the humanities—more art than education. Though what, in this context, is a “harp song”? Maybe a reference to Kipling? The general point seems to be that the humanities suffer in the modern world. True enough, but there’s nothing really notable here. Following this is the “Epilogue,” a poem written by Conquest, which I frankly didn’t understand. This is followed by an Appendix solely devoted to citations of Conquest’s own work, to prove that he, at least, foresaw the collapse of the Soviet system, against claims that nobody did. A second Appendix provides a detailed organizational blueprint for an Anglosphere political system, a concept barely touched on in the main text. One gets the impression that Conquest was allowed by his publisher and editor to simply write a book as he wanted, and he wanted to ramble. So the book is disjointed, and that makes the book ultimately very unsatisfying.
The book is divided into three major sections, each containing a series of loosely joined short essays. Part I is titled “Through Reefs and Riptides.” One frustration I had with this book is that it’s not easy to parse out what topics Conquest intends to cover, and this problem starts at the very beginning. It appears this section is meant to be organized around dispelling “mind-mists” that have developed around much of modern discourse. The primary “mind-mist” is socialism and its variants, to include farther flung variants like Islamic terror, with the common denominator being “an enmity to established thought and its institutions.” From an initial discussion on this, Conquest turns to a discussion of words, or as he puts it typically and floridly, “Harpooning Some Word-Whales.”
Among targets here are uses, or misuses, of the words “democracy,” “fascism,” and “totalitarian.” Conquest’s objection is to language that is used without precision, or with deliberate attempt to obfuscate. In this, of course, he follows Orwell, whom he cites repeatedly. What Conquest does not note is that in Orwell’s time, mendacity in language was common, but the traditional logical and rhetorical forms were observed, because if they had not been, the liars would have been ignored. Even ten years ago, in 2005, when Conquest wrote this book, this was largely true.
Unfortunately, in past ten years, corruption of language, together with its evil cousins, suppression of speech not desired by those in power, and irrationality masquerading as insight, have all reached a frenzy. It’s like going down a greased slide—eventually gravity and momentum take over, finishing the trends that began tentatively not so long ago. Conquest, though, did not live to see this, or to predict what comes next. He seemed to think there was a way back. Unfortunately, today, the real choices are either to retreat from engaging the Left, or to have hard men engage in a gutter struggle, hoping that once the serpents have been strangled by means fair or foul, men of equipoise and virtue will come forth to retire the hard men and rebuild a new polity.
Or, on the other hand, are those the real choices? Could our society be changed back to value rationality, precision in language, and freedom of speech? Peaceful change of a modern society has been done before. Conquest notes “In the late nineteenth century, the English economist and socialist Sidney Webb wrote that to change opinion in England it would only be necessary to win over a few thousand key figures.” The Webbs, of course, were the founder of the Fabians, early socialists who achieved great success in this regard. As Conquest notes, they wrote books, and more importantly, they sponsored the “great Fabian efforts of conferences, summer schools, pamphlets and more permanent measures such as the founding of the London School of Economics.”
The difference, though, is that it’s easier to change public policy towards the Left. First, those on the Left seek transcendence through political action in a way uncommon among conservatives. They define the value of their life through their achievements, whereas conservatives tend to focus on home and hearth. (This is the same reason why Communists after the fall of Communism were left alone by the Right and frequently acceded to power and wealth; while even minor functionaries in any fallen right-wing government are always hounded by the Left across the globe for their entire lives.) The dragons of expectation seize the mind in a way that incremental improvement in the human condition and a focus on common, homely things can never do. This gives them a vigor and staying power lacking on the Right. Second, the modern Left never permits backsliding. Any leftist success is viewed as permanent and is defended to the last gasp with all means available. The Right lacks this tenacity and focus. Thus, peaceful change of our society back to a rational, balanced society is unlikely, even if wealthy elites were to make such a project their focus—and the few wealthy elites interested in conservative positions, such as the Koch brothers, are largely elitist conservatives, socially liberal and more interested in electing politicians than creating beneficial social change through changes in broad public opinion.
In subsequent chapters in this section, Conquest attacks a range of targets, ranging from leftist elites (“What one finds too often is an ‘educated’ class—particularly but not only in Europe—which is simply not aware of any general attitudes but its own”) to corporatism, to bureaucratic bloat and temperament (“There is a great emotional difference between ‘I am doing a useful service’ and ‘I am fulfilling a sublime mission’”), to the European Union. Though the impact and coherence of much of this is reduced by the elliptical, musing nature of its presentation, a lot of it is prescient about today. Conquest predicts exactly the current condition of the EU, as well as the multitudinous creeping deficiencies of the elitist classes. And he ends this section with “The downward slope, unless interrupted, can scarcely lead to anything but corporatism. The only probably interruption would be due to a buildup of resentment against the system. That is to say, this etatism may itself produce the catastrophe from which is purports to save us.” As of October 2016, this seems eerily prescient, though we’ll see soon enough if the desirable catastrophe arrives.
Part II, “Horrible Examples,” is a review of the Cold War, basically to again dispel myths Conquest disposed of decades before, and to note reasons for the ultimate Soviet collapse. Here, again, there is a lot of opaque musing. There’s also an entire chapter devoted to attacking four people or things not obviously linked: the historian C.P. Snow; Simone de Beauvoir; John Kenneth Galbraith; and CNN’s show “The Cold War.” No doubt each of these was an odious liar and Communist apologist. And yes, this does fit into a discussion of the Cold War. But still, it feels disjointed.
Part III, “Harp Song of the Humanities,” covers, unsurprisingly, the humanities—more art than education. Though what, in this context, is a “harp song”? Maybe a reference to Kipling? The general point seems to be that the humanities suffer in the modern world. True enough, but there’s nothing really notable here. Following this is the “Epilogue,” a poem written by Conquest, which I frankly didn’t understand. This is followed by an Appendix solely devoted to citations of Conquest’s own work, to prove that he, at least, foresaw the collapse of the Soviet system, against claims that nobody did. A second Appendix provides a detailed organizational blueprint for an Anglosphere political system, a concept barely touched on in the main text. One gets the impression that Conquest was allowed by his publisher and editor to simply write a book as he wanted, and he wanted to ramble. So the book is disjointed, and that makes the book ultimately very unsatisfying.
Want to read
September 21, 2007I just read a Christopher Hitchens summary/review of this book, and my appetite is whetted. Anyone have some useful words for me?
October 5, 2017
Whoah! Mr. Conquest was a bit of a crank. I thought The Harvest of Sorrow was very good and I might still read The Great Terror. But, this will bump it down the list and will taint my reading.
April 14, 2013
Awesome book for those interested in exploring the failure of socialism. Conquest is a scholar and historian who has written extensively about the Soviet Union (see The Great Terror). Here he discusses the state of the world at the beginning of the twentieth century and speculates on where we're going. The overriding theme is the evil of totalitarianism whether it be Nazism or Communism. His warning is that we are in danger when we fall prey to ideologies that appear on the surface to be problem solving when in fact their nature and impact on culture can just as likely be corrosive.
December 12, 2014
parts of this book were brilliant essays, particularly his denouncement of the failure of all kinds of totalitarian systems and how sometimes it's difficult (or inconvenient!) for intellectuals to recognise them and denounce them clearly. It all kind of fell apart though with his proposal of some world system of governance or overseeing. I saw no point in this and it seems like Conquest does not realise it is another recipe that could turn into a dragon.
However, he shines when he writes about literature, so all is forgiven!
However, he shines when he writes about literature, so all is forgiven!
November 17, 2018
Were our lives longer, I might have read a lot of Robert Conquest. His body of work is enormous. These are summary essays of a wise man sharing what he learned during a well lived life of scholarship and reporting. This is a fine nightstand book, at least for my retired self, when I have tome of muse as I wait for sleep. The essays seem slightly offset and these fractured to let in light.
September 16, 2020
There’s something wrong with us humans, individually and collectively. We all know it. Religion acknowledges it, and philosophy too. History demonstrates it and personal experience proves it. No one is untouched by the contagion, regardless of race, creed, or nationality.
How did we get so badly wrong? Were we cursed by the gods? Did the grand abstraction “society” ruin us? Can we blame our parents? Or is it a matter of irrevocable nature that we come into the world self-serving, given to passions, often to violence? (And yet, if that’s the case – if the behaviors and thoughts we blame in ourselves and others are merely natural to us – then how is it we’ve come to find them objectionable in the first place?)
You might phrase the question for political philosophy this way: Can the beast be cured or merely caged? Liberal democratic societies have generally opted for the cage, seeking to prevent the beast from doing more harm than is unavoidable in a free society. Twentieth century totalitarianisms (socialist/communist and to some degree fascist) proposed cures of one sort or another, and tried to impose those cures at the cost of tens of millions of lives. You could say they blamed the cage for the nature of the beast; in freeing it they only allowed it to grow as beastly as it could possibly become.
It’s this kind of quasi-utopian folly in its various permutations that Robert Conquest surveys in The Dragons of Expectation. While some aspects of the book have aged out of relevance since it was published (Conquest was still basking in the West’s triumph in the Cold War), it would still make a good primer for today’s would-be social reformers and rioter-revolutionaries. Championing the old pluralistic liberal values that have so quickly become unfashionable, Conquest mercilessly pummels “the delusion that [all] problems are susceptible, in principle, to being solved by political decision.”
“Each time a solution imposed by force has, after all, failed to improve matters, it is thought that the fault is merely that insufficient power has been put behind it,” Conquest writes. “If one more refractory social group is liquidated, if party discipline is tightened and all shirkers and compromisers adequately dealt with, then next time all will be well. We should have learned by now from these unfortunate ‘social experiments’ that there are problems that cannot be dealt with even by the maximum application of political power.”
But apparently we haven’t learned that lesson yet. And we probably won’t. Or if we do, we’ll be standing ankle-deep in blood when we’ve got it down, and then the next generation will forget it again – because forgetfulness, too, is a part of what ails us.
How did we get so badly wrong? Were we cursed by the gods? Did the grand abstraction “society” ruin us? Can we blame our parents? Or is it a matter of irrevocable nature that we come into the world self-serving, given to passions, often to violence? (And yet, if that’s the case – if the behaviors and thoughts we blame in ourselves and others are merely natural to us – then how is it we’ve come to find them objectionable in the first place?)
You might phrase the question for political philosophy this way: Can the beast be cured or merely caged? Liberal democratic societies have generally opted for the cage, seeking to prevent the beast from doing more harm than is unavoidable in a free society. Twentieth century totalitarianisms (socialist/communist and to some degree fascist) proposed cures of one sort or another, and tried to impose those cures at the cost of tens of millions of lives. You could say they blamed the cage for the nature of the beast; in freeing it they only allowed it to grow as beastly as it could possibly become.
It’s this kind of quasi-utopian folly in its various permutations that Robert Conquest surveys in The Dragons of Expectation. While some aspects of the book have aged out of relevance since it was published (Conquest was still basking in the West’s triumph in the Cold War), it would still make a good primer for today’s would-be social reformers and rioter-revolutionaries. Championing the old pluralistic liberal values that have so quickly become unfashionable, Conquest mercilessly pummels “the delusion that [all] problems are susceptible, in principle, to being solved by political decision.”
“Each time a solution imposed by force has, after all, failed to improve matters, it is thought that the fault is merely that insufficient power has been put behind it,” Conquest writes. “If one more refractory social group is liquidated, if party discipline is tightened and all shirkers and compromisers adequately dealt with, then next time all will be well. We should have learned by now from these unfortunate ‘social experiments’ that there are problems that cannot be dealt with even by the maximum application of political power.”
But apparently we haven’t learned that lesson yet. And we probably won’t. Or if we do, we’ll be standing ankle-deep in blood when we’ve got it down, and then the next generation will forget it again – because forgetfulness, too, is a part of what ails us.
March 5, 2021
The ramblings of a very knowledgeable and, to a great extent, experienced old man.
The greatest fault the book has is that it often feels like a deconstruction of the many thoughts of a knowledgeable mind, and the reader is tasked with putting it together. If one trudges through, it is not difficult to get a feel for his train of thought. There are plenty moments of personal digressions, even memoir, in between what are essentially essays about the Soviet Union (the middle, and best written, section), the humanities, and the misuse of ideological terminology in everyday discourse.
I cannot recommend this book to someone who wants something easy to digest on 20th century political commentary, but if you’ve already read the author’s other books (I have not), I assume a familiarity with his style will make this an easier read. If you have experience reading experimental fiction or modernist poetry, this will be a cinch. Otherwise, check out his first book, instead (as someone else suggested on here).
The greatest fault the book has is that it often feels like a deconstruction of the many thoughts of a knowledgeable mind, and the reader is tasked with putting it together. If one trudges through, it is not difficult to get a feel for his train of thought. There are plenty moments of personal digressions, even memoir, in between what are essentially essays about the Soviet Union (the middle, and best written, section), the humanities, and the misuse of ideological terminology in everyday discourse.
I cannot recommend this book to someone who wants something easy to digest on 20th century political commentary, but if you’ve already read the author’s other books (I have not), I assume a familiarity with his style will make this an easier read. If you have experience reading experimental fiction or modernist poetry, this will be a cinch. Otherwise, check out his first book, instead (as someone else suggested on here).
February 6, 2019
A fitting reminder of all the truths we should have learned from history's experiment with communism and socialism, all tinged with a flair for the absurd. While every age struggles with the search for truth is there any doubt that today's pursuit is determined delusion? The Dragons of Expectations reads like a collection of essays. One need not be familiar with the author's previous works to glide through Dragons, but it helps. Does anyone in the West even teach the history of Communism and Socialism? Somehow if our esteemed close minded academies touch on the subject I doubt seriously Robert Conquest makes it on the syllabus. Too bad.
October 5, 2022
Conquest's parting salvo falls on deaf ears. A familiar refrain to the faithful, but to these Christian ears there is a melancholy in the years after his death - his arguments are never weaker than when they attempt to deny the necessity of the Biblical worldview. And when the reader brings a Biblical perspective to Conquest's instincts, his arguments are never more persuasive.
September 17, 2013
Magisterial! Robert Conquest calls to arms his lifelong study of History to fatally wound some left-wing idealogical idols in the manner of Orwell...iconoclasm at its best! I was uplifted to know that such honourable historians as Robert Conquest still exist...men & women willing to confront the 'fellow-travellers' & 'useful idiots' who have plagued Britain & the West since October 1917! It has taken nearly a century but the left-wing intellectuals are on the retreat,if not the run! Join the hunt for the most dishonest generation of 'historians' we have ever seen.Stalin can't keep their bread buttered & jammed any longer! Here's to every man & woman who wants liberty-and-law to manage their lives not the smoke and mirrors of totalitarianism,both Marxist-Communists & Nazis,fascists all! The Conquest Conquest?
July 26, 2007
Okay. Not all I had hoped.
October 13, 2012
Good advice!
Read
March 27, 2016Started this but it wasn't what I expected / was looking for.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews