On The Future of History

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

ohn Lukacs has arguably done the best writing on historical consciousness in recent decades. The Future of History renews for me a custom that I have followed for more than half a century: reading his books. I purchased his very first one, The Great Powers and Eastern Europe, in 1955 just before I entered graduate school. It powerfully seized my imagination and became briefly my favorite history book. Looking back on The Great Powers now, it is clear that it was already a representative Lukacs work. The Great Powers is a good deal more than diplomatic history; in fact, though it was published long before the term became fashionable, it is “international history.” And it is very well written. Some of Lukacs’s best writing in later years deals with the development of history as a form of understanding and the trend toward historicity in modern thought. The Future of History deepens awareness of these themes. No one has better set forth the ultimate function of history: the pursuit of truth, together with the correction of untruth, and the gaining of understanding even more than accuracy, though without the latter the former will not be achieved. Equally important is his contention that the most important objective of history is to understand not merely what people have done but what they have thought. Another of Lukacs’s key themes is the indispensable literary character of history, which will continue to be the case despite the current threat to the future of the book. Serious historical study preceded the appearance of books in their modern format and will survive their technological transformation. The Future of History poses a paradox: How can we reconcile the massive decline of history in school curricula at all levels (combined with the zeal of younger historians to avoid major historical problems) with the popularity of history among the educated minority and the broad extension of a historical consciousness that has never before existed to this extent? One response might be to posit a highbrow/lowbrow distinction, and conclude that a greater awareness of history reflects the fact that so many more people have had access to advanced education during recent generations, even though at