Review by Julia Stapleton from Durham University Journal (July). Reprinted by permission of the Journal and the reviewer. – GW. The emergence of this book suggests that grand narrative in the human sciences lives on, despite the attempts of postmodernists to sign its death warrant. For Walford contends that ideology forms part of an evolutionary… read more »
This review first appeared in The Australian Journal of Politics and History Volume 39 Number 2, October 1993. Systematic ideology is not a well known body of theory. In fact it is largely due to two men. Harold Walsby and George Walford. The work under review is an elaboration and refinement of earlier studies: Walsby’s… read more »
In the opening pages I noted that a theory of ideology must account for the presence of differing ideologies within the one society. Systematic ideology explains the major or main-sequence ideologies as stages in the universal system of evolution and the minor ideologies, the more localised and transient ones, as specialised versions of one or… read more »
We have distinguished three main stages of social development (four if one reckons the presence of the eidodynamics as constituting a distinct stage), each of them marked by the emergence of an ideological influence not previously active. We cannot precisely locate the first appearance of these influences and probably never shall be able to do… read more »
Having looked very briefly at the major ideologies and some of their effects on the history and present functioning of society, we now turn to trace out their origins. In doing this we shall need two concepts which Walsby developed beyond their usual significance: assumption (which we have already met) and limitation. I have been… read more »
Since introducing Walsby’s ascription of the ideologies of Expediency, Domination and Precision to the eidostatic and those of Reform, Revolution and Repudiation to the eidodynamic, I have spoken only of the first three. We found each of these established as the distinctive mark of a stage in social development, but the same cannot be said… read more »
We now have before us six movements (strictly, five movements and one group), each of them extending over most of the world although under various names and with adaptations to suit local conditions. In introducing them I have taken the opportunity of showing that they form a series, and we shall find greater significance in… read more »