ABSTRACT
In December 1957, Simon and Schuster published Max Lerner's "big book," America as a Civilization, which he worked on for a dozen years, filling over 1100 pages in its second edition. In "The Towerless Edifice," Daniel Bell was given two issues of The New Republic in which to deal with Lerner. Rather than compare Lerner with Alexis de Tocqueville and James Bryce, he believed Harold Laski's The American Democracy to be the proper gauge. Commager's verdict, distinct from that of most other reviewers', held that Lerner had joined the new work of "cultural anthropologists, sociologists, psychiatrists, philosophers, and literary critics to forge a general, all-inclusive statement about what made the United States what it was and what it wished it were. In "The Towerless Edifice," Daniel Bell was given some issues of The New Republic in which to deal with Lerner.
