The Riddle of History: The Great Speculators From Vico to Freud

by Bruce Mazlish

The Great Speculators are those historians who, rather than concentrating on one period and amassing the facts limited to that period, see in history the workins of a large system that can be applied to all times and all peoples.

484 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1966

Reviews

[Mark Lisac · Rating 2 out of 5]

As scholarship the book probably rates 4 stars. For a general reader, it has problems. The premise was to present a series of essays on prominent theorists of history from the early 1700s to the mid-1900s. The best section is the first, on Giambattista Vico, little known outside academic circles but a great pioneer in historical thought (I take the judgment from the description of his ideas in Mazlish's work). Nearly as good are lucid summaries of Marx and Freud. Sections on Voltaire and Kant are OK. But in the middle comes a long test of the reader's concentration and patience in the form of a detailed essay on the occult mumbo-jumbo put together in almost a private language by Georg Hegel. A few lesser lights are thrown in, although for some reason not Ludwig Feuerbach, to whom Mazlish often refers. And then there are the nearly inexplicable inclusions of Oswald Spengler, a fantasizing crank whose metaphysics Mazlish dismisses as "largely a farrago of pretentious and contradictory nonsense," and Arnold Toynbee, a prodigious writer but very loose thinker. Mazlish credits Spengler with one pretty good idea while writing off all his others. His chapter on Toynbee turns into a hilarious succession of pejoratives — e.g., "the pyramidal detritus of a profoundly outdated and diffused mind" — leading the reader to wonder why Toynbee was included (and what Mazlish thought when he was awarded the Toynbee Prize in 1987).
Toynbee produced his 10-volume Study of History over three decades, culminating in the publication of four volumes in 1954. The description of his work makes him sound like a person in tune with the 1950s, a period in which he was enormously popular. Perhaps his standing in popular culture at the time led to his being noted, but Mazlish was right in suggesting in his 1966 book that Toynbee's work would become "only a curiosity in 20 or 30 years."
Mazlish was a prominent academic through the last half of the 1900s. Historians, philosophers and related scholars may get more out of this book. If I were advising friends, I'd suggest they read the chapters on Vico, Marx and Freud and then get the overall picture from the "conclusion" chapter.