Out of Revolution

by Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

This classic, originally published in 1938, was reprinted in 1969 for a new generation by Berg Publishers. From the new introduction by Harold J. ""That this book-- written six decades ago --is without question an extraordinary book, a remarkable book, a fascinating book, has not saved it from relative obscurity. It is directed against conventional historiography, and for the most part the conventional historians have either ignored it or denounced it . . . [It] is a history in the best sense of the word. Although it embodies original scholarship of the highest professional quality, it is written primarily for the amateur, the person of general education, who wants to know where we came from and whither we are headed. But it is also a theory of how history should be understood, how historians should write about it . . .. Out of Revolution interprets modern Western history as a single 900-year period, initiated by total revolution . . . and punctuated thereafter by a series of total revolutions that broke out successively in the different European nations . . .. Rosenstock-Huessy was a prophet who, like many great prophets, failed in his own time, but whose time may now be coming.""

Genres: History, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Politics

856 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1993

About the author

Eugen Rosenstock-Hüssy (July 6, 1888 – February 24, 1973) was a historian and social philosopher, whose work spanned the disciplines of history, theology, sociology, linguistics and beyond. Born in Berlin, Germany into a non-observant Jewish family, the son of a prosperous banker, he converted to Christianity in his late teens, and thereafter the interpretation and reinterpretation of Christianity was a consistent theme in his writings. He met and married Margrit Hüssy in 1914. In 1925, the couple legally combined their names. They had a son, Hans, in 1921.

Rosenstock-Huessy served as an officer in the German army during World War I. His experience caused him to reexamine the foundations of liberal Western culture. He then pursued an academic career in Germany as a specialist in medieval law, which was disrupted by the rise of Nazism. In 1933, after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, he emigrated to the United States where he began a new academic career, initially at Harvard University and then at Dartmouth College, where he taught from 1935 to 1957.

Although never part of the mainstream of intellectual discussion during his lifetime, his work drew the attention of W. H. Auden, Harold Berman, Martin Marty, Lewis Mumford, Page Smith, and others. Rosenstock-Huessy may be best known as the close friend of and correspondent with Franz Rosenzweig. Their exchange of letters is considered by scholars of religion and theology to be indispensable in the study of the modern encounter of Jews with Christianity. In his work, Rosenstock-Huessy discussed speech and language as the dominant shaper of human character and abilities in every social context. He is viewed as belonging to a group of thinkers who revived post-Nietzschean religious thought.

Reviews

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy was a prophetic polymath. A German academic who fought in WWI, immigrated to America, and taught for nearly 40 years. He's one of those guys who seems to know everything: history, theology, political theory, philosophy, linguistics, sociology, etc. And he weaves it all together in this highly interpretive history of the great revolutions that rocked Europe from the 12th century to the 20th, the results of which are now woven into our modern culture. It is literally shocking to read this book and realize that Huessy was writing it during the 1930s; his insight into the National Socialist movement is truly prophetic of what was to come to fruition a few years later. Part of why he's able to be so spot on in his predictions is because Huessy reads the history of Europe as a series of revolutions that culminated in WWI with its aftermath leaving Germany dangerously poised to radicalize.

I've read on the Russian, French, English, and the German (Reformation) revolutions; have one more to go, plus ERH synthesis at the end.
More to come...
May 11 update: reading this is taking me forever. Am finally on the last revolution (Gregory VII's papal revolution). it's still genius but slow going, especially in tandem with DFW...

Good grief: finally finished this and the last two chapters where summarizes what he's up to are worth it. The whole thing is incredible, impossible to summarize, brilliant. ERH has got to be one of the great thinkers of the 20th century, and certainly among the greatest undiscovered, unappreciated ones.

[z]

- read this over several months, carefully marking up nearly every page and sticking post-its everywhere to form my own little index
- this book reshaped my thinking so fundamentally i'm placing it with Chesterton's "Heretics/Orthodoxy" and St. Augustine's "City of God" for books i'll never stop reading

[Jack W. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading this book for over a year and a half, and it was worth the slow pace. It has refreshed and encouraged my thinking so many times, and helped me make so much more sense of my world. Rosenstock-Huessy is a gold mine, and this book is the best.

[Troy Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

FINISHED!
What a book! What a excursion! What a harmony of rabbit trails! What a symphony of I know not what! The book was amazing, frustrating, and has sent me don't so many visions of history's patterns that I feel quite dizzy. Rosenstock-Huessy's goal is to right the theme of the last thousand year as revolution. From the millennium’s first revolution in the heart of the pope against the Holy Roman Emperor (in Hildebrand 900s) to the climax of revolutions in WWI (1914).
Rosenstock-Huessy calls things revolution that I do not think I could (The reformation, the English restoration), but following HIS plot, there does seem to be a revolving (i.e. revolution) theme. The first millennium seems to be without revolution, perhaps (though he doesn't say so) it was filled with evolutions. Things were starting, but nothing was re-starting. This last millenium will again shift -so he prophesies -- but I'm unclear what that shift will be.
All to say, this book his "The Rise and Fall of Western Revolutions" and a nascent search for what is beyond revolutions... something more multiform, catholic, and rhythmic. For revolutions are spiral events , but life -- like speech -- is rhythmic. Speech requires one person to listen and another to hear, one to give the imperative and another to do it, one to ask the interrogative another to hear it and respond. The preconditions of a revolution are the breakdown of the speaking rhythm, all wait for a word, all wait for all calling. Revolutions, according to this light, try to regain that rhythm.
So many questions... so few to talk with about it.

[Harley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read this book off and on over the past few years. I did not read it cover to cover, but jumped around. There are parts I will come back to, and some that meant nothing to me. Interesting book. ERH is always illuminating if a bit strange.

[Leandro Lara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I strongly recommend this book. Rosenstock shows the begging of revolution in west civilization and unveils each great revolution. He proves that Gregório VII was the great revolutionary of all times.

[Luke Echo · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have been skimming through this Rosenstock-Huessy tome. What is this book really about? I have no idea. It is a meandering morass of details and random anecdotes, history, and oddities.

[Douglas Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most unique and important works of historiography written.

A must read!