The Meaning of History - Softcover

Berdyaev, Nikolai

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1412804973 ISBN 13: 9781412804974

Publisher: Transaction Publishers, 2005

Synopsis

In her brilliant new opening essay, Banerjee says of Berdyaev "he was never more than a curious but unwelcome guest in history. He fearlessly engaged it on the level of ideas while remaining alien to its means and ends, gifted with an incurable longing for transcendence." Witness to two world wars, Berdyaev observed the destruction of established cultures in the traumatic birth of new systems. Arrested on political suspicion-by Czarist and then by Bolshevik police―he died in exile in France in 1948, carrying forth his intellectual work until the end.

Berdyaev considered the philosophy of history as a field that laid the foundations of the Russian national consciousness. Its disputes were centered on distinctions between Slavophiles and Westerners, East and West. The Meaning of History was an early effort, following World War I, that attempted to revive this perspective. With the removal of Communism as a ruling system in Russia, that nation returned to an elaboration of a religious philosophy of history as the specific mission of Russian thought. This volume thus has contemporary significance. Its sense of the apocalypse, which distinguishes Russian from Western thought, gives the book its specifically religious character.

In order to grasp and oppose the complex phenomenon of social and cultural disintegration, Berdyaev shows that human beings must rely upon some internal dialectic. After the debacle of the war, the moment arrived to integrate Russian historical experiences into those of a Europe, which, although torn by schism, still claimed to be the descendant of Christendom. The book is remarkable for its powerful stylistic grace, and astonishingly contemporary feeling.

About this title

Review:

"Transaction Publishers has performed an important service in recently reissueing Nikolai Berdyaev's "The Meaning of History: An Essay on the Philosophy of Human Destiny"... The Transaction Edition contains a new introduction by Professor Maria Nemcova Banerjee that first appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of "Modern Age" under the title, "Nikolai Berdiaev and Spiritual Freedom." A balanced and penetrating 'reconsideration' of the Russian thinker's achievement that no student of Berdyaev can ignore, Banerjee's essay places and assesses Berdyaev's overall contribution and significance as an existentialist philosopher and an original interpreter of Russian phiilosophical and religious thought."

"- George A. Panichas, Modern Age"

"Transaction Publishers has performed an important service in recently reissueing Nikolai Berdyaev's "The Meaning of History: An Essay on the Philosophy of Human Destiny.".. The Transaction Edition contains a new introduction by Professor Maria Nemcova Banerjee that first appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of "Modern Age" under the title, "Nikolai Berdiaev and Spiritual Freedom." A balanced and penetrating 'reconsideration' of the Russian thinker's achievement that no student of Berdyaev can ignore, Banerjee's essay places and assesses Berdyaev's overall contribution and significance as an existentialist philosopher and an original interpreter of Russian phiilosophical and religious thought."

"- George A. Panichas, Modern Age"

"Transaction Publishers has performed an important service in recently reissueing Nikolai Berdyaev's The Meaning of History: An Essay on the Philosophy of Human Destiny... The Transaction Edition contains a new introduction by Professor Maria Nemcova Banerjee that first appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of Modern Age under the title, "Nikolai Berdiaev and Spiritual Freedom." A balanced and penetrating 'reconsideration' of the Russian thinker's achievement that no student of Berdyaev can ignore, Banerjee's essay places and assesses Berdyaev's overall contribution and significance as an existentialist philosopher and an original interpreter of Russian phiilosophical and religious thought."

- George A. Panichas, Modern Age

-Transaction Publishers has performed an important service in recently reissueing Nikolai Berdyaev's The Meaning of History: An Essay on the Philosophy of Human Destiny... The Transaction Edition contains a new introduction by Professor Maria Nemcova Banerjee that first appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of Modern Age under the title, -Nikolai Berdiaev and Spiritual Freedom.- A balanced and penetrating 'reconsideration' of the Russian thinker's achievement that no student of Berdyaev can ignore, Banerjee's essay places and assesses Berdyaev's overall contribution and significance as an existentialist philosopher and an original interpreter of Russian phiilosophical and religious thought.-

- George A. Panichas, Modern Age

About the Author:

Nikolai Berdyaev had a cultural rather than political abhorrence of the Bolshevik regime, and in 1922, he was expelled from Russia for what was considered his religious mysticism. Among his many works are The Russian Idea and Origin of Russian Communism. Maria Nemcova Banerjee is professor of Russian at Smith College. She is the author of Terminal Paradox: The Novels of Milan Kundera.

About this edition

• Publisher: Transaction Publishers
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1412804973
• ISBN 13: 9781412804974
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 252