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One of the most important developments of Western civilization has
been the growth of historical consciousness. Consciously or not,
history has become a form of thought applied to every facet of
human experience; every field of human action can be studied,
described, or understood through its history. In this extraordinary
analysis of the meaning of the remembered past, John Lukacs
discusses the evolution of historical consciousness since its first
emergence about three centuries ago.
An unorthodox historian known and respected for his work on the
grand conflicts of nations and civilizations, John Lukacs has
peopled a smaller canvas in this volume, with seven colourful
figures who flourished in Philadelphia before 1950. Their stories
are framed by chapters that describe the city in 1900 and in 1950.
The Philadelphians selected are a political boss, Boies Penrose; a
magazine mogul, Edward Bok; an elegant writer, Agnes Repplier; an
impetuous diplomat, William C. Bullitt; a lawyer, George Wharton
Pepper; a prophet of decline, Owen Wister; and a great art
collector, Albert C. Barnes. The political boss was perhaps the
most monumental political figure of his age. The magazine mogul was
the most famous embodiment of the American success story during his
lifetime. The now almost forgotten writer was the Jane Austen of
the essay. The diplomat was the most brilliant of ambassadors. The
terrible-tempered collector was a radical proponent of his unusual
theory of art. Through these seven portraits, Lukacs paints a
picture of Philadelphia that is "like all living things, having the
power to change out of recognition and yet remain the same." This
work is a must read for all historians and Philadelphians.
An unorthodox historian known and respected for his work on the
grand conflicts of nations and civilizations, John Lukacs has
peopled a smaller canvas in this volume, with seven colourful
figures who flourished in Philadelphia before 1950. Their stories
are framed by chapters that describe the city in 1900 and in 1950.
The Philadelphians selected are a political boss, Boies Penrose; a
magazine mogul, Edward Bok; an elegant writer, Agnes Repplier; an
impetuous diplomat, William C. Bullitt; a lawyer, George Wharton
Pepper; a prophet of decline, Owen Wister; and a great art
collector, Albert C. Barnes. The political boss was perhaps the
most monumental political figure of his age. The magazine mogul was
the most famous embodiment of the American success story during his
lifetime. The now almost forgotten writer was the Jane Austen of
the essay. The diplomat was the most brilliant of ambassadors. The
terrible-tempered collector was a radical proponent of his unusual
theory of art. Through these seven portraits, Lukacs paints a
picture of Philadelphia that is "like all living things, having the
power to change out of recognition and yet remain the same." This
work is a must read for all historians-and Philadelphians.
As one of the most prolific writers of Hungarian literature, Gyula
Krudy provides us with a collection of articles that display his
intimate knowledge of Hungarian society. Written during the 1910s,
`20s and `30s, Krudy provides us with a wistful and nostalgic image
of the waning years of the Austro-Hungarian empire, with portraits
of the Habsburgs, culminating in first hand reports in 1916, from
Vienna on the funeral of Emperor Francis Joseph I, and from
Budapest on the coronation of Charles IV, the last king of Hungary.
Krudy's reports follow the bloodless democratic revolution of 1918,
the Karolyi government and the short lived Soviet Republic, and
present cameos of the leading political figures of the day such as
Ferenc Kossuth, Mihaly Karolyi and Bela Kun.
In this extraordinary analysis of the meaning of the remembered
past, Lukacs discusses the evolution of historical consciousness
since its first emergence about three centuries ago. Among the
diverse subjects he examines are the endurance of national
characteristics; the development of language, history, and
democracy; public opinion; the problem of religious history; memory
and time; history and physics; motives and causes; and the end of
the Modern Age. In a new introduction, Lukacs comments on the
continual decline of historical knowledge and the teaching of
history.
A master historian offers an eloquent and personal auto-history of
his life and his ideas Twenty years ago, John Lukacs paused to set
down the history of his own thoughts and beliefs in Confessions of
an Original Sinner, an adroit blend of autobiography and personal
philosophy. Now, in Last Rites, he continues and expands his
reflections, this time integrating his conception of history and
human knowledge with private memories of his wives and loves, and
enhancing the book with footnotes from his idiosyncratic diaries.
The resulting volume is fascinating and delightful-an auto-history
by a passionate, authentic, brilliant, and witty man. Lukacs begins
with a concise rendering of a historical understanding of our world
(essential reading for any historian), then follows with trenchant
observations on his life in the United States, commentary on his
native Hungary and the new meanings it took for him after 1989, and
deeply personal portraits of his three wives, about whom he has not
written before. He includes also a chapter on his formative
memories of May and June 1940 and of Winston Churchill, a subject
in some of Lukacs's later studies. Last Rites is a richly layered
summation combined with a set of extraordinary observations-an
original book only John Lukacs could have written. Praise for
Confessions of an Original Sinner: "[Lukacs] is an often witty and
always fascinating-even entertaining-writer."-Washington Post
In September 1952, John Lukacs, then a young and unknown historian,
wrote George Kennan (1904-2005), the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet
Union, asking one of the nation's best-known diplomats what he
thought of Lukacs's own views on Kennan's widely debated idea of
containing rather than militarily confronting the Soviet Union. A
month later, to Lukacs's surprise, he received a personal reply
from Kennan. So began an exchange of letters that would continue
for more than fifty years. Lukacs would go on to become one of
America's most distinguished and prolific diplomatic historians,
while Kennan, who would retire from public life to begin a new
career as Pulitzer Prize-winning author, would become revered as
the man whose strategy of containment led to a peaceful end to the
Cold War. Their letters, collected here for the first time, capture
the writing and thinking of two of the country's most important
voices on America's role and place in world affairs. From the
division of Europe into East and West after World War II to its
unification as the Soviet Union disintegrated, and from the war in
Vietnam to the threat of nuclear annihilation and the fate of
democracy in America and the world, this book provides an insider's
tour of the issues and pivotal events that defined the Cold War.
The correspondence also charts the growth and development of an
intellectual and personal friendship that was intense, devoted, and
honest. As Kennan later wrote Lukacs in letter, "perceptive,
understanding, and constructive criticism is . . . as I see it, in
itself a form of creative philosophical thought." It is a belief to
which both men subscribed and that they both practiced. Presented
with an introduction by Lukacs, the letters in Through the History
of the Cold War reveal new dimensions to Kennan's thinking about
America and its future, and illuminate the political-and
spiritual-philosophies that the two authors shared as they wrote
about a world transformed by war and by the clash of ideologies
that defined the twentieth century.
The historian John Lukacs offers a concise history of the twentieth
century--its two world wars and cold war, its nations and leaders.
The great themes woven through this spirited narrative are
inseparable from the author's own intellectual preoccupations: the
fading of liberalism, the rise of populism and nationalism, the
achievements and dangers of technology, and the continuing
democratization of the globe. The historical twentieth century
began with the First World War in 1914 and ended seventy-five years
later with the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1989. The short
century saw the end of European dominance and the rise of American
power and influence throughout the world. The twentieth century was
an American century--perhaps the American century. Lukacs explores
in detail the phenomenon of national socialism (national socialist
parties, he reminds us, have outlived the century), Hitler's sole
responsibility for the Second World War, and the crucial roles
played by his determined opponents Churchill and Roosevelt. Between
1939 and 1942 Germany came closer to winning than many people
suppose. Lukacs casts a hard eye at the consequences of the Second
World War--the often misunderstood Soviet-American cold war--and at
the shifting social and political developments in the Far and
Middle East and elsewhere. In an eloquent closing meditation on the
passing of the twentieth century, he reflects on the advance of
democracy throughout the world and the limitations of human
knowledge.
A master historian explores the critical future of history writing
and teaching For more than sixty years, John Lukacs has been
writing, teaching, and reading about the past. In this inspired
volume, he turns his attention to the future. Throughout The Future
of History, Lukacs reflects on his discipline, eloquently arguing
that the writing and teaching of history are literary rather than
scientific, comprising knowledge that is neither wholly objective
nor subjective. History at its best, he contends, is personal and
participatory. Despite a recently unprecedented appetite for
history among the general public, as evidenced by history
television program ratings, sales of popular history books, and
increased participation in local historical societies, Lukacs
believes that the historical profession is in a state of disarray.
He traces a decline in history teaching throughout higher
education, matched by a corresponding reduction in the number of
history students. He reviews a series of short-lived fads within
the profession that have weakened the fundamentals of the field. In
looking for a way forward, Lukacs explores the critical
relationships between history and literature, including ways in
which novelists have contributed to historical understanding.
Through this startling and enlightening work, readers will
understand Lukacs's assertion that "everything has its history,
including history" and that history itself has a future, since
everything we know comes from the past.
The master historian John Lukacs explores lasting questions and
enigmas about World War II, its consequences, and its persistent
legacy Sixty-five years after the conclusion of World War II, its
consequences are still with us. In this probing book, the acclaimed
historian John Lukacs raises perplexing questions about World War
II that have yet to be explored. In a work that brilliantly argues
for World War II's central place in the history of the twentieth
century, Lukacs applies his singular expertise toward addressing
the war's most persistent enigmas. The Second World War was
Hitler's war. Yet questions about Hitler's thoughts and his
decisions still remain. How did the divisions of Europe-and,
consequently, the Cold War-come about? What were the true reasons
for Werner Heisenberg's mission to Niels Bohr in Copenhagen in
September 1941? What led to "Rainbow Five," the American decision
to make the war against Germany an American priority even in the
event of a two-ocean world war? Was the Cold War unavoidable? In
this work, which offers both an accessible primer for students and
challenging new theses for scholars, Lukacs addresses these and
other riddles, revealing the ways in which the war and its legacy
still touch our lives today.
On 13 May 1940, Winston Churchill stood before the House of
Parliament to deliver his first speech as prime minister. German
troops were advancing across Europe; Neville Chamberlain's
government had fallen three days earlier. Churchill needed to prove
himself an able leader, and he also needed to convince an unwilling
nation to support his stand against Hitler.
In this taut meditation on a great leader under great pressure,
Lukacs demonstrates that Churchill delivered his triumphant speech
despite his own sense that England might soon fall to Hitler's
armies. A riveting portrait of leadership in its confrontation with
radical evil, Lukacs's book is essential reading for WWII buffs,
Churchill aficionadi, and anyone interested in leadership.
An eminent historian offers his views on American democracy In A
New Republic, one of America's most respected historians offers a
major statement on the nature of our political system and a
critical look at the underpinnings of our society. American
democracy, says John Lukacs, has been transformed from an exercise
in individual freedom and opportunity to a bureaucratic system
created by and for the dominance of special groups. His book, first
published in 1984 as Outgrowing Democracy, is now reissued with a
new introduction, in which Lukacs explains his methodology, and a
new final chapter, which sums up Lukacs's thoughts on American
democracy today. Reviews of the earlier edition "A rich, subtle,
and often ingenious argument . . . an eloquent, provocative, but
disturbing book."-Edwin M. Yoder, Jr., Washington Post Book World
"Mr. Lukacs is an original and subtle historian, and [this book] is
an engaging intellectual surprise party. . . . I was continuously
enchanted by the play of his ideas-by the sharpness of his
distinctions and the acuteness of his descriptions."-Naomi Bliven,
New Yorker "It has been a long time since Americans were offered
such a provocative interpretation of their historical predicament.
. . . We would be foolish not to examine it closely."-Laurence
Tool, Society
At the End of an Age isa deeply informed and rewarding reflection
on the nature of historical and scientific knowledge. Of
extraordinary philosophical, religious, and historical scope, it is
the product of a great historian's lifetime of thought on the
subject of his discipline and the human condition. While running
counter to most of the accepted ideas and doctrines of our time, it
offers a compelling framework for understanding history, science,
and man's capacity for self-knowledge. In this work, John Lukacs
describes how we in the Western world have now been living through
the ending of an entire historical age that began in Western Europe
about five hundred years ago. Unlike people during the ending of
the Middle Ages or the Roman empire, we can know where we are. But
how and what is it that we know? In John Lukacs's view, there is no
science apart from scientists, and all of "Science," including our
view of the universe, is a human creation, imagined and defined by
fallible human beings in a historical continuum. This radical and
reactionary assertion-in its way a summa ofthe author's thinking,
expressed here and there in many of his previous twenty-odd
books-leads to his fundamental assertion that, contrary to all
existing cosmological doctrines and theories, it is this earth
which is the very center of the universe-the only universe we know
and can know.
The distinguished historian John Lukacs has been described as "one
of the most powerful as well as one of the most learned minds [of
the] century" by Conor Cruise O'Brien and as "one of the most
original and profound of contemporary thinkers" by Paul Fussell.
Here Lukacs presents a series of fictionalized vignettes of daily
life as experienced by ordinary individuals in the United States
(although Lukacs takes us to some European countries as well), each
in a year from 1901 to 1969, and each followed by a short dialogue
in which the author argues with an interlocutor (who may or may not
be himself) over why he has chosen to develop a given scenario in
that particular year and what its significance might be. The period
represents the life of a single man, K., which Lukacs weaves in and
out of the text and through which can be traced the leitmotif of
the book: the decline of Anglo-American civilization and of the
ideal of the gentleman. The book is primarily a work in the history
of manners and mores, a delightful-and poignant-succession of
sketches that brings the reader into the inner and often undeclared
life of individuals and places them in the larger dramas of
historical process in this century.
A profoundly moving biographical study of George Kennan by the fine
historian John Lukacs A man of impressive mental powers, of
extraordinary intellectual range, and-last but not least-of
exceptional integrity, George Frost Kennan (1904-2005) was an
adviser to presidents and secretaries of state, with a decisive
role in the history of this country (and of the entire world) for a
few crucial years in the 1940s, after which he was made to retire;
but then he became a scholar who wrote seventeen books, scores of
essays and articles, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir. He also
wrote remarkable public lectures and many thousands of incisive
letters, laying down his pen only in the hundredth year of his
life. Having risen within the American Foreign Service and been
posted to various European capitals, and twice to Moscow, Kennan
was called back to Washington in 1946, where he helped to inspire
the Truman Doctrine and draft the Marshall Plan. Among other
things, he wrote the "X" or "Containment" article for which he
became, and still is, world famous (an article which he regarded as
not very important and liable to misreading). John Lukacs describes
the development and the essence of Kennan's thinking; the-perhaps
unavoidable-misinterpretations of his advocacies; his self-imposed
task as a leading realist critic during the Cold War; and the
importance of his work as a historian during the second half of his
long life.
A highly esteemed historian reflects on the dangerous descent of
democracy into populism-particularly in the United States.
Democracy has changed substantially since the second World War,
evolving into a dangerous and possibly irreversible populism, says
John Lukacs in this intensely interesting-and troubling-book. The
esteemed historian offers biting, timely, and controversial
observations on the power of the media and the precarious state of
American democracy today. "In taking up Tocqueville's theme,
democracy in America, our most perceptive and far-ranging historian
corrects many misconceptions about the recent past and deals
commandingly with this country's zeal to implant our blend of
freedoms abroad. He will arouse thought as he always does and stir
the emotions more than usual."-Jacques Barzun "Lukacs is
indisputably one of the English language's greatest-and most
idiosyncratic-historians. . . . This is a wonderful book to chew
on. . . . For the intelligent and historically literate general
reader, this may well be a great joy."-Jonah Goldberg, National
Review
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