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Confessions of an Original Sinner
In this eloquent and thought-provoking "autohistory", John Lukacs, distinguished historian and writer, describes the history of his own convictions and beliefs. The journey takes us from the Hungary of the 1930s and the ravaged Budapest of World War II to Lukacs's discovery of the New World, his forays into the intellectual life of New York City, and finally his settling in Philadelphia.Along the way, Lukacs examines many of the major currents of our period, including fascism, communism, democracy, anti-Semitism, and the Christian realism from which springs the book's title. What emerges is a mind that brings to bear on the conflicts of the twentieth century the erudition of the European heritage and the independence of the American.
In prose as elegant as it is supple, Confessions of an Original Sinner is at once the vivid account of one man's voyage and an important contribution to that small library that brings into sharp focus the major intellectual developments of our time.
In prose as elegant as it is supple, Confessions of an Original Sinner is at once the vivid account of one man's voyage and an important contribution to that small library that brings into sharp focus the major intellectual developments of our time.
328 pages, Hardcover
First published November 15, 1989
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About the author
John Lukacs
63 books118 followersLukacs was born in Budapest to a Roman Catholic father and Jewish mother. His parents divorced before the Second World War. During the Second World War he was forced to serve in a Hungarian labour battalion for Jews. During the German occupation of Hungary in 1944-45 he evaded deportation to the death camps, and survived the siege of Budapest. In 1946, as it became clear that Hungary was going to be a repressive Communist regime, he fled to the United States. In the early 1950s however, Lukacs wrote several articles in Commonweal criticizing the approach taken by Senator Joseph McCarthy, whom he described as a vulgar demagogue.[1]
Lukacs sees populism as the greatest threat to civilization. By his own description, he considers himself to be a reactionary. He claims that populism is the essence of both National Socialism and Communism. He denies that there is such a thing as generic fascism, noting for example that the differences between the political regimes of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy are greater than their similarities.[2]
A major theme in Lukacs's writing is his agreement with the assertion by the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville that aristocratic elites have been replaced by democratic elites, which obtain power via an appeal to the masses. In his 2002 book, At the End of an Age, Lukacs argued that the modern/bourgeois age, which began around the time of the Renaissance, is coming to an end.[3] The rise of populism and the decline of elitism is the theme of his experimental work, A Thread of Years (1998), a series of vignettes set in each year of the 20th century from 1900 to 1998, tracing the abandonment of gentlemanly conduct and the rise of vulgarity in American culture. Lukacs defends traditional Western civilization against what he sees as the leveling and debasing effects of mass culture.
By his own admission a dedicated Anglophile, Lukacs’s favorite historical figure is Winston Churchill, whom he considers to be the greatest statesman of the 20th century, and the savior of not only Great Britain, but also of Western civilization. A recurring theme in his writing is the duel between Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler for mastery of the world. The struggle between them, whom Lukacs sees as the archetypical reactionary and the archetypical revolutionary, is the major theme of The Last European War (1976), The Duel (1991), Five Days in London (1999) and 2008's Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat, a book about Churchill’s first major speech as Prime Minister. Lukacs argues that Great Britain (and by extension the British Empire) could not defeat Germany by itself, winning required the entry of the United States and the Soviet Union, but he contends that Churchill, by ensuring that Germany failed to win the war in 1940, laid the groundwork for an Allied victory.
Lukacs holds strong isolationist beliefs, and unusually for an anti-Communist émigré, "airs surprisingly critical views of the Cold War from a unique conservative perspective."[4] Lukacs claims that the Soviet Union was a feeble power on the verge of collapse, and contended that the Cold War was an unnecessary waste of American treasure and life. Likewise, Lukacs has also condemned the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
In his 1997 book, George F. Kennan and the Origins of Containment, 1944-1946, a collection of letters between Lukacs and his close friend George F. Kennan exchanged in 1994-1995, Lukacs and Kennan criticized the New Left claim that the Cold War was caused by the United States. Lukacs argued however that although it was Joseph Stalin who was largely responsible for the beginning of the Cold War, the administration of Dwight Eisenhower missed a chance for ending the Cold War in 1953 after Stalin's death, and as a consequence the Cold War went on for many more decades.
Lukacs sees populism as the greatest threat to civilization. By his own description, he considers himself to be a reactionary. He claims that populism is the essence of both National Socialism and Communism. He denies that there is such a thing as generic fascism, noting for example that the differences between the political regimes of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy are greater than their similarities.[2]
A major theme in Lukacs's writing is his agreement with the assertion by the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville that aristocratic elites have been replaced by democratic elites, which obtain power via an appeal to the masses. In his 2002 book, At the End of an Age, Lukacs argued that the modern/bourgeois age, which began around the time of the Renaissance, is coming to an end.[3] The rise of populism and the decline of elitism is the theme of his experimental work, A Thread of Years (1998), a series of vignettes set in each year of the 20th century from 1900 to 1998, tracing the abandonment of gentlemanly conduct and the rise of vulgarity in American culture. Lukacs defends traditional Western civilization against what he sees as the leveling and debasing effects of mass culture.
By his own admission a dedicated Anglophile, Lukacs’s favorite historical figure is Winston Churchill, whom he considers to be the greatest statesman of the 20th century, and the savior of not only Great Britain, but also of Western civilization. A recurring theme in his writing is the duel between Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler for mastery of the world. The struggle between them, whom Lukacs sees as the archetypical reactionary and the archetypical revolutionary, is the major theme of The Last European War (1976), The Duel (1991), Five Days in London (1999) and 2008's Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat, a book about Churchill’s first major speech as Prime Minister. Lukacs argues that Great Britain (and by extension the British Empire) could not defeat Germany by itself, winning required the entry of the United States and the Soviet Union, but he contends that Churchill, by ensuring that Germany failed to win the war in 1940, laid the groundwork for an Allied victory.
Lukacs holds strong isolationist beliefs, and unusually for an anti-Communist émigré, "airs surprisingly critical views of the Cold War from a unique conservative perspective."[4] Lukacs claims that the Soviet Union was a feeble power on the verge of collapse, and contended that the Cold War was an unnecessary waste of American treasure and life. Likewise, Lukacs has also condemned the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
In his 1997 book, George F. Kennan and the Origins of Containment, 1944-1946, a collection of letters between Lukacs and his close friend George F. Kennan exchanged in 1994-1995, Lukacs and Kennan criticized the New Left claim that the Cold War was caused by the United States. Lukacs argued however that although it was Joseph Stalin who was largely responsible for the beginning of the Cold War, the administration of Dwight Eisenhower missed a chance for ending the Cold War in 1953 after Stalin's death, and as a consequence the Cold War went on for many more decades.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 22, 2009
This book was recommended to me by a exceedingly sharp and curmudgeonly bookseller in DC with whom I share a number of enthusiasms. I am grateful to him. It is an exemplary autobiography -- vivid, attentive, confessional only when it means to be (unlike so much of the ego-stricken nonsense on the market), witty, contrarian -- always engaging. Lukacs' is a capacious intelligence roving across the surprising landscape of its self-construction, from Hungary to Pennsylvania, with many transit points between.
February 10, 2010
I'm related to the author, so I make no claims at objectivity. It's a reactionary, contrarian polemic which is sometimes hilarious (see his hatred of Star Wars) and often quite brilliant.
May 15, 2022
This is a very interesting and insightful book by one of my favorite historians about own life and his understanding of it. He is actually my grandfathers age, born in Hungary in 1924. TK TK
March 1, 2017
Lukacs was born in Hungary and as a young man went to live in England because his mother was an Anglophile and thought it was the only place for her son to become educated. He stayed there for school and college but returned to Hungary in time for WWII. His father was Roman Catholic (the religion he embraced) but his mother was Jewish and he was forced to fight in a Jewish battalion during the war.
After Germany's defeat, he realized that his country was going to become part of the Soviet "Iron Curtain" so he fled to America where he got a job teaching at a college. He has some interesting opinions about the responsibility Churchill and FDR had in letting Stalin have so much of Europe.
This book is filled with his memories but also his observations of Americans and comparing them to his own upbringing and also the culture prevalent in Europe at the time.
He has a habit of making some rather sweeping generalizations about American citizens, some of which I agree, others which I'm not sure it is completely accurate to make so broad a conclusion about so many people. But I think his is the perspective of an outsider who spent many years as a foreigner, feeling like a foreigner, being viewed as a foreigner, even though his goal was to assimilate into American culture.
He noticed that the average American was parochial in that they possess little interest beyond the scope of their immediate environment or culture. Little to no interest was shown him about his own background or history, even though it is very interesting and unusual.
Another observation was that over eighty percent of college educators are liberal and teach their classes accordingly. They filter every subject through the lens of socialist ideologies.
I thought this interesting as well as surprising since he made these observations back in the fifties and sixties. Lukacs remarks that there is a population of progressive elitists that believe the socialist model is the only experiment that can be successful and that America should look to Europe as a blueprint on which to construct our own society.
Never mind that the majority of immigrants in the world, including Europe, were (and are) applying for Visas to the United States. Lukacs considers these "elitists" to be out of touch with reality and can only preserve their vision by living in their self-made bubbles in the world of academia.
He notes that people out in the real world just want jobs and to pay their bills have a more pragmatic outlook.
I did not find much of his personal history interesting, except when he described his extreme loneliness for some years after immigrating because it was so hard to access people already entrenched in family and communities of which he had no part.
He did finally marry and it was to a woman whose family could trace their ancestry back to the original settlers. His father-in-law was part of the "Old Money Aristocracy." When his wife died he married another woman belonging to the old Aristocracy, this time from the Old South. Lukacs does not say but I wonder if marrying these women was an unconscious effort on his part to finally belong to his chosen country. If his roots did not go deep, at least his children's did.
The information Lukacs presented was very interesting but his writing could be a bit dry. I hope that was not how he lectured to his class at University. There were certain musings, recollections and details that could have been eliminated to produce a more fluid content.
Nevertheless, this book is worthwhile and I recommend it.
After Germany's defeat, he realized that his country was going to become part of the Soviet "Iron Curtain" so he fled to America where he got a job teaching at a college. He has some interesting opinions about the responsibility Churchill and FDR had in letting Stalin have so much of Europe.
This book is filled with his memories but also his observations of Americans and comparing them to his own upbringing and also the culture prevalent in Europe at the time.
He has a habit of making some rather sweeping generalizations about American citizens, some of which I agree, others which I'm not sure it is completely accurate to make so broad a conclusion about so many people. But I think his is the perspective of an outsider who spent many years as a foreigner, feeling like a foreigner, being viewed as a foreigner, even though his goal was to assimilate into American culture.
He noticed that the average American was parochial in that they possess little interest beyond the scope of their immediate environment or culture. Little to no interest was shown him about his own background or history, even though it is very interesting and unusual.
Another observation was that over eighty percent of college educators are liberal and teach their classes accordingly. They filter every subject through the lens of socialist ideologies.
I thought this interesting as well as surprising since he made these observations back in the fifties and sixties. Lukacs remarks that there is a population of progressive elitists that believe the socialist model is the only experiment that can be successful and that America should look to Europe as a blueprint on which to construct our own society.
Never mind that the majority of immigrants in the world, including Europe, were (and are) applying for Visas to the United States. Lukacs considers these "elitists" to be out of touch with reality and can only preserve their vision by living in their self-made bubbles in the world of academia.
He notes that people out in the real world just want jobs and to pay their bills have a more pragmatic outlook.
I did not find much of his personal history interesting, except when he described his extreme loneliness for some years after immigrating because it was so hard to access people already entrenched in family and communities of which he had no part.
He did finally marry and it was to a woman whose family could trace their ancestry back to the original settlers. His father-in-law was part of the "Old Money Aristocracy." When his wife died he married another woman belonging to the old Aristocracy, this time from the Old South. Lukacs does not say but I wonder if marrying these women was an unconscious effort on his part to finally belong to his chosen country. If his roots did not go deep, at least his children's did.
The information Lukacs presented was very interesting but his writing could be a bit dry. I hope that was not how he lectured to his class at University. There were certain musings, recollections and details that could have been eliminated to produce a more fluid content.
Nevertheless, this book is worthwhile and I recommend it.
February 6, 2026
Meandering reminiscences, beautifully written and extremely likable if taken in measured doses. Four stars really just for being likable in the end. I haven’t read any of Lukacs’ scholarly work, but he comes across as the more-of-wisdom-than-of-knowledge type. The Mitteleuropa cultural distance yields some really unusual perspective, but as a human type he’s extremely earnest. It would be reductionist but not entirely vulgar to say that he reads like Robertson-Davies-but-a-historian crossed with a more sociologically minded Milosz.
January 12, 2023
Chapter 2&6&7 were great. The other chapters were a bit heavy
February 26, 2008
He has had an amazing life, from a Hungarian concentration camp to historian in rural Pennsylvania. This book is full of interesting and idiosyncratic reflections and insights.
June 14, 2010
Great book for GG
December 7, 2014
Really exceptionally good. A beautiful meditation on life, learning, and history.
April 15, 2017
I found the audio book version in Hungarian a very nice experience. The self-portrayal of an optimistic and quite fortunate thinker who does not brood endlessly on the vicissitudes of life and in this comparable to the very different, weighty mysticism of Imre Kertész.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews