History and the Human Condition: A Historian's Pursuit of Knowledge

by John Lukacs

In a career spanning more than sixty-five years, John Lukacs has established himself as one of our most accomplished historians. Now, in the stimulating book History and the Human Condition, Lukacs offers his profound reflections on the very nature of history, the role of the historian, the limits of knowledge, and more.Guiding us on a quest for knowledge, Lukacs ranges far and wide over the past two centuries. The pursuit takes us from Alexis de Tocqueville to the atomic bomb, from American “exceptionalism” to Nazi expansionism, from the closing of the American frontier to the passing of the modern age.Lukacs’s insights about the past have important implications for the present and future. In chronicling the twentieth-century decline of liberalism and rise of conservatism, for example, he forces us to rethink the terms of the liberal-versus-conservative debate. In particular, he shows that what passes for “conservative” in the twenty-first century often bears little connection to true conservatism.Lukacs concludes by shifting his gaze from the broad currents of history to the world immediately around him. His reflections on his home, his town, his career, and his experiences as an immigrant to the United States illuminate deeper truths about America, the unique challenges of modernity, the sense of displacement and atomization that increasingly characterizes twenty-first-century life, and much more. Moving and insightful, this closing section focuses on the human in history, masterfully displaying how right Lukacs is in his contention that history, at its best, is personal and participatory.History and the Human Condition is a fascinating work by one of the finest historians of our time. More than that, it is perhaps John Lukacs’s final word on the great themes that have defined him as a historian and a writer. 

Genres: History

245 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 20, 2012

About the author

Lukacs 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.

Reviews

[Jim Coughenour · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book will take its place at the end of my shelf of books by the musing historian John Lukacs. In the steamy summer of 1976 I first discovered his The Last European War on a book table in Georgetown and was fascinated by his way of writing history. After that I bought almost every book he published as it appeared. In those early years I was also intrigued by Owen Barfield and the notion of an "evolution of consciousness." So, it seemed, was Lukacs – his Historical Consciousness: The Remembered Past refers explicitly to Barfield and is still one of the most interesting investigations of what history "means" ever written. Even so, virtually no one I knew had ever read him.

This changed a bit in 2001 when Yale published Five Days in London, May 1940, an elegant presentation of what Lukacs had been saying about Churchill, Hitler and Stalin for the previous 30 years. When (at a book signing, around 2003) I asked Alan Furst which World War II historians he relied upon for the creation of his novels, the first book he mentioned was The Last European War.

But no author is excellent forever. Well into his 80s Lukacs continued to publish smaller and smaller studies. A certain curmudgeonliness, always apparent in this original thinker, came to the fore. His later books repeat themselves, quote themselves (and worse, his diaries), wag their fingers at the reader with the same phrases in the same way. History and the Human Condition is a valediction, in almost equal part repetition and lightly embittered reflection. It is purely for his admirers, of which he merits many – although probably not for this book.

[Andrew Kinney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has made me intrigued to read more of John Lukacs. He is a good writer, he understands the value-laden and context-dependent nature of facts, and he sees history through decisions and ideas of real, living people who can be understood, and for whom we can have compassion. Because of this book I now like and respect John Lukacs. However, the book was itself something of a letdown. It is a compilation of a number of his articles, vaguely strung together with recurring themes. None of those themes are properly explored and few of his points are really argued for. I assume he does both of these things in his full-length books. So, if you are deciding whether to read this book, I would recommend that you do read something by Lukacs, but probably not this.

[Joel Zartman · Rating 5 out of 5]

He’s a fine old chap–I hope he cranks out a few more things. Puts things nicely, makes interesting observations, gets to the point of things, understands and can explain exactly very often. There are things he says I still can’t figure out, but I like what I can figure out an awful lot.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

The master in what will most likely be his last performance. Tolle, lege.