The End of History" would never have existed, either as an article or as this present book, without the invitation to deliver a lecture by that title during the 1988-89 academic year, extended by Professors Nathan Tarcov and Allan Bloom of the John M. Olin Center for Inquiry into the Theory and Practice of Democ- racy at the University of Chicago. Both have been long-time teach ers and friends …
T HE 'philosophy of history' is the term customarily used to designate those general and somewhat vague speculations about the pattern and meaning of historical events in which historians, philosophers and even theologians occasionally indulge. As the term itself shows, this is a branch of human thought which has not yet emerged from the womb of philosophy, philosophy, it has not yet become a s…
There has been a veritable Hegel Renaissance, especially in France and Germany. This renewed interest in Hegel is preoccupied with Hegel's metaphysical and religious ideas. The favorite work and the one having given rise to the most interesting discussions is the Phenomenology of the Spirit. The most remarkable book in this trend is Alexandre Kojëve, Introduction à la Lecture de Hegel-Leçons…
This book is the result of many years' effort to deal effectively with the problems involved in the first part of a survey course in world history. The chief problem, as every instructor will recognize, is how to provide an interpretation of major past civilizations while at the same time giving enough facts to make the interpretation meaningful. The student needs both fact and interpretation; …
WHOEVER would seek the origin of things that in countless ways control mankind begins an arduous task. One can readily tell when the radio, motion picture, airplane, or automobile appeared, for he well remembers the time he saw the first of these or at least can talk with people who saw the first ones. But it is more difficult to imagine the days when the internal-combustion engine was produced…
THE NEW PEOPLE. Painting from the Cemetery of St. Priscilla in the Catacombs, Rome. Wilpert, Die Katakombenge- mälde und ihrer alten copien (Herder, Freiburg i.B)rnrnThe art of the catacombs is the first outward manifestationrnrnof Christian culture, and shows in a remarkable way how thernrnexternal forms of the old Roman-Hellenistic culture werernrnassimilated and modified by the new spiritua…
In recent years, European and American historians of Asia have spoken increasingly of the need to avoid Euro-centric views of Asian history. The need, they have observed, is to write from an Asian point of view. The history written by European colonial officials about native peoples and imperial governments has obviously had its day. Although there were some notable exceptions, such authors wer…
Tr torical study which would be intelligible themselves within their own limits of space and time, without reference to extraneous historical events. The search for these self-contained units led us to find them in Societies of the species we called Civilizations, and so far we have been working on the assumption that a comparative study of the geneses, growths, breakdowns, breakdowns, and disi…
De titel, met zijn toestemming ontleend aan, een bundel van de dichter Binnendijk, is nochtans geen literair ornament. Niet alleen, dat ik er het concretiserend lidwoord aan heb toege- voegd, maar ik acht er, wat meer zegt, ook de gedachte in uit gedrukt, waaromheen deze studies en critieken zich min of meer kristalliseren tot een, zij het onafgerond geheel. Deze gedachte n.l., dat het verleden…
The writing of history is an ancient and honorable pro- fession. What is more, like the arts and unlike the sciences, it reached a degree of perfection early in the ancient world which, in a sense, it has never surpassed. Thucydides is as supreme a figure in the art of history as Sophocles in the art of tragedy. Only science and technology have pro- gressed, steadily, encouragingly, and frighte…