History and the Human Condition: A Historian's Pursuit of Knowledge PDF
Preview History and the Human Condition: A Historian's Pursuit of Knowledge
H istory and tHe Human C ondition H istory H uman and tHe C ondition a Historian’s pursuit of knowledge joHn lukaCs wilmington, delaware Copyright © 2013 by John Lukacs All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or any informa- tion storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lukacs, John, 1924– History and the human condition : a historian’s pursuit of knowledge / John Lukacs. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-61017-065-9 (hardback) 1. History—Philosophy. 2. Historiography—Philosophy. 3. History, Modern—19th century. 4. History, Modern—20th century. I. Title. D16.8.L825 2012 901—dc23 2011052635 Published in the United States by: ISI Books Intercollegiate Studies Institute 3901 Centerville Road Wilmington, Delaware 19807-1938 www.isibooks.org Manufactured in the United States of America This book is dedicated to my dear friends Evan and Klaus, and to their wives Contents Preface One History as Literature 1 Two American “Exceptionalism” 19 Three The Germans’ Two Wars: Heisenberg and Bohr 27 Four Necessary Evil 51 Five The Origins of the Cold War 57 Six The Vital Center Did Not Hold 87 Seven A Tocqueville Tide 97 Eight The World Around Me: My Adopted Country 109 Notes 143 Bibliography 157 Permissions 223 Index 225 vii Preface t o introduCe, or prefaCe, one’s published writ- ing must be easy. But I find it difficult, since such an explanation (Disraeli: “Never complain, never explain”) could sound as an apologia. That I certainly wish to avoid. But I think I need to attempt a few sentences to sum up a reason for this book. History and the Human Condition contains some of my work published during the past ten years, 2002 to 2012. I have had a fairly large writing and publishing career till now. A recurring theme of the more than thirty books and the many hundreds of articles, essays, and reviews I wrote and then pub- lished during two-thirds of a century, 1947 to 2002, has been that history is more than the “recorded past,” that its study and writing are more than a “science.” Remembered Past: John Lukacs on History, Historians, and Historical Knowledge was the ix x Preface title of the massive and impressive volume that ISI Books pub- lished in 2005. A large book, 923 pages, containing, among other things, a 50-page bibliography, listing about 99 percent of all my published writings from 1947 to 2002. The present book, of course, is smaller in size. It is in some ways a continu- ation of Remembered Past . . . but it is also different in its pur- pose and its contents. When Remembered Past was completed, I was eighty years old and in good health. When History and the Human Condition is published, I will be in my ninetieth year, and failing in my strength, inclined to think that I shall no longer write another entire book. During the past ten years I was still blessed with enough physical and mental health to write an estimable amount: a list of my published books from 2002 to 2012 (though not of my articles, essays, and other published writings) may be found at the end of this volume. Selections from my published writings of these past ten years are the contents of this, smaller, volume. But there is also another difference. It is a gradual shift in the emphasis of my principal concerns. This shift, contra Disraeli, may call for an explanation. From his early years, this ambitious historian has had two different (though not unrelated) interests and concerns. One was my ambition to write history perhaps exceptionally well, but also including themes and contents unlike those that con- cerned perhaps the majority of academic historians—much of this ambition springing from my conviction that history, its research and then inevitably its writing, was a form of litera- ture rather than “science.” The other was my gradual realiza- tion not only that historical evidence differs from scientific or legal evidence but also that what a few physicists (Heisenberg rather than Einstein) learned about subatomic matters corre- sponded amazingly to my own, slow, and often painful realiza-
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