Volume 54, Number 11 · June 28, 2007
Mr. Casaubon in America
By Mark Lilla
The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin
by Eric Voegelin
University of Missouri Press, 34 volumes, $29.95–$74.95 each
Crisis is the mother of history. Beginning with Herodotus the urge to write history has been bound up with the need to explain the seemingly inexplicable reversals of fortune suffered by nations and empires. The best histories satisfy that need while still capturing the openness and unpredictability of human action, though the best histories are not always the most memorable. Historians who offer 'multicausal explanations'—and use phrases like that—do not last, while those who discover the hidden wellspring of absolutely everything are imitated and attacked but never forgotten.
Review, 4317 words
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