New Releases by John Lukacs

One of the most important developments of Western civilization has been the growth of historical consciousness. Consciously or not, history has become a form of thought applied to every facet of human experience; every field of human action can be studied, described, or understood through its history. In this extraordinary analysis of the meaning of the remembered past, John Lukacs discusses the evolution of historical consciousness since its first emergence about three centuries ago.

An unorthodox historian known and respected for his work on the grand conflicts of nations and civilizations, John Lukacs has peopled a smaller canvas in this volume, with seven colourful figures who flourished in Philadelphia before 1950. Their stories are framed by chapters that describe the city in 1900 and in 1950.The Philadelphians selected are a political boss, Boies Penrose; a magazine mogul, Edward Bok; an elegant writer, Agnes Repplier; an impetuous diplomat, William C. Bullitt; a lawyer, George Wharton Pepper; a prophet of decline, Owen Wister; and a great art collector, Albert C. Barnes. The political boss was perhaps the most monumental political figure of his age. The magazine mogul was the most famous embodiment of the American success story during his lifetime. The now almost forgotten writer was the Jane Austen of the essay. The diplomat was the most brilliant of ambassadors. The terrible-tempered collector was a radical proponent of his unusual theory of art.Through these seven portraits, Lukacs paints a picture of Philadelphia that is "like all living things, having the power to change out of recognition and yet remain the same." This work is a must read for all historians and Philadelphians.

Un maestro de historiadores nos brinda la elocuente y personal autohistoria de su vida y sus ideas. Países, recuerdos, familia, amores y amigos, éxitos, libros, trabajos, casas... Ochenta y cinco años (los que tenía su autor cuando este libro se publicó originalmente) dan para mucho. El genio de Lukacs, el mismo que anima sus extraordinarias obras históricas, es saber condensar esta larga vida dedicada a la literatura y la historia en unas páginas breves, ligeras, en las que desgrana a la vez el relato de su vida y su profunda visión de la historia y del conocimiento.

¿Cuántos años duró el siglo XX? ¿Qué potencia ha definido la historia de este siglo? ¿Cuál es la diferencia entre ''estado'' y ''nación''? ¿Qué grandes imperios desaparecieron tras la Primera Guerra Mundial? Toda África era en 1914 colonia europea, excepto dos países. ¿Cuáles? ¿Cuándo abandonaron el patrón oro las grandes potencias? ¿Quién dijo ''yo era nacionalista, pero no patriota''? ¿Cuál fue la última gran cumbre entre líderes de la Segunda Guerra Mundial? ¿Quién dijo ''el problema de Hitler es que no sabe cuándo detenerse''? ¿Qué fue ''la crisis de los misiles'' y cómo se resolvió? ¿Cuándo y cómo acabó la guerra fría? ¿Hubo guerras entre países de Sudamérica a lo largo del siglo XX? ¿Cómo definiría con una frase el siglo XX?

Collection of comments, essays, lectures, and other writings.

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.

De historicus John Lukacs geeft in een bezield relaas een bondige geschiedenis van de twintigste eeuw: twee wereldoorlogen en een koude oorlog en hun naties en leiders. Vanaf de Eerste Wereldoorlog betekende de twintigste eeuw het einde van de Europese dominantie en de opkomst van de Amerikaanse macht en invloed in de wereld. Lukacs verkent tot in detail het fenomeen nationaalsocialisme, en de cruciale rol van individuen in de Tweede Wereldoorlog: Hitler, Churchill en Roosevelt. Tussen 1939 en 1942 kwam Duitsland dichter bij de overwinning dan veel mensen aannemen. Lukacs werpt in Een korte geschiedenis van de twintigste eeuw een vorsende blik op de consequenties van de Tweede Wereldoorlog _ de vaak verkeerd begrepen Koude Oorlog _ en op de verschuivende sociale en politieke verhoudingen in onder meer het Verre en Midden-Oosten. In een welluidende afsluitende overpeinzing over het einde van de twintigste eeuw, reflecteert hij op de expansie van de democratie over de hele wereld, en op de beperktheid van de menselijke kennis. Lukacs maakte een belangrijke pagina in de geschiedenis zelf mee, toen hij in de Tweede Wereldoorlog zijn geboorteland Hongarije moest ontvluchten wegens de Duitse bezetting. In de Verenigde Staten maakte hij vervolgens carrière als historicus. De boeken die zijn pen heeft voortgebracht worden niet alleen geroemd om hun wetenschappelijke waarde, maar bovendien om de schrijfstijl. John Lukacs is emeritus hoogleraar geschiedenis aan Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia en de auteur van ruim twintig boeken, waaronder Vijf dagen in Londen, over de beslissing van het kabinet van Winston Churchill in 1940 om de strijd tegen Hitler voort te zetten.

The great themes woven through John Lukacs''s spirited, concise history of the twentieth century are inseparable from the author''s own intellectual preoccupations: the fading of liberalism, the rise of populism and nationalism, the achievements and dangers of technology, the continuing democratization of the globe, and the limitations of knowledge.

Tras más de treinta libros y toda un vida dedicada a escribir y enseñar historia, John Lukacs vuelve la vista atrás y reflexiona sobre el ayer y el hoy de su oficio, sobre las muchas mudanzas en las modas y las costumbres que ha presenciado durante su larga carrera. Y trata de imaginar un futuro, un espacio donde su labor siga teniendo sentido. Con esta sencilla base, Lukacs firma la que quizá sea su obra maestra: un libro agridulce, realista y certero, escéptico pero cargado de ilusiones. El futuro de la Historia es el legado de un hombre al que durante toda su vida le obsesionó que la historia sea ante todo literatura de la mejor calidad, que ha reflexionado a fondo sobre los vínculos entre historia y la narrativa, que descree de las “ciencias sociales” y de las modas historiográficas, y que brinda por los grandes historiadores jóvenes, por el futuro. Emocionante, irónico, a veces desconcertante, a veces capaz de generar grandes preguntas con una reflexión aparentemente azarosa, Lukacs demuestra con El futuro de la Historia su maestría como prosista... y como historiador. “Una obra imprescindible para cualquiera que se interese por la historia en el siglo xxi”. Stanley G. Payne, hispanista “Nadie ha hecho más que John Lukacs por convertir la narración histórica corta en una forma de arte”. Antony Beevor, autor de Berlín. La caída: 1945 y Stalingrado John Lukacs (1924) Nacido en Hungría y residente en Estados Unidos, John Lukacs está considerado como uno de los principales expertos del mundo en la historia de las dos guerras mundiales. Ha compaginado durante casi cinco décadas la labor docente, como profesor de historia en diversas universidades estadounidenses, con su carrera de escritor. En esta colección se han publicado cuatro de sus obras anteriores.

Reflects upon the discipline of history, claiming that the writing and teaching of history in higher education is in decline, and explores ways in which the future of the discipline can thrive.

In this brilliant, strikingly original book, historian John Lukacs delves to the core of Adolf Hitler''s life and mind by examining him through the lenses of his surprisingly diverse biographers. Since 1945 there have been more than one hundred biographies of Hitler, and countless other books on him and the Third Reich. What happens when so many people reinterpret the life of a single individual? Dangerously, the cumulative portrait that begins to emerge can suggest the face of a mythic antihero whose crimes and errors blur behind an aura of power and conquest. By reversing the process, by making Hitler''s biographers--rather than Hitler himself--the subject of inquiry, Lukacs reveals the contradictions that take us back to the true Hitler of history. Like an attorney, Lukacs puts the biographies on trial. He gives a masterly account of all the major works and of the personalities, methods, and careers of the biographers (one cannot separate the historian from his history, particularly in this arena); he looks at what is still not known (and probably never will be) about Hitler; he considers various crucial aspects of the real Hitler; and he shows how different biographers have either advanced our understanding or gone off track. By singling out those who have been involved in, or co-opted into, an implicit "rehabilitation of Hitler," Lukacs draws powerful conclusions about Hitler''s essential differences from other monsters of history, such as Napoleon, Mussolini, and Stalin, and--equally important--about Hitler''s place in the history of this century and of the world.

Addresses the perplexing and often overlooked questions about World War II, revealing the ways in which the war and its legacy still touch lives today.

A master historian offers an eloquent and personal auto-history of his life and his ideas Twenty years ago, John Lukacs paused to set down the history of his own thoughts and beliefs in Confessions of an Original Sinner, an adroit blend of autobiography and personal philosophy. Now, in Last Rites, he continues and expands his reflections, this time integrating his conception of history and human knowledge with private memories of his wives and loves, and enhancing the book with footnotes from his idiosyncratic diaries. The resulting volume is fascinating and delightful--an auto-history by a passionate, authentic, brilliant, and witty man. Lukacs begins with a concise rendering of a historical understanding of our world (essential reading for any historian), then follows with trenchant observations on his life in the United States, commentary on his native Hungary and the new meanings it took for him after 1989, and deeply personal portraits of his three wives, about whom he has not written before. He includes also a chapter on his formative memories of May and June 1940 and of Winston Churchill, a subject in some of Lukacs''s later studies. Last Rites is a richly layered summation combined with a set of extraordinary observations--an original book only John Lukacs could have written. Praise for Confessions of an Original Sinner: "[Lukacs] is an often witty and always fascinating--even entertaining--writer."--Washington Post

Anthologizes the writings of one of a once-famous--and now unjustly forgotten--great American wit and critic.

John Lukacs, historiador eminente nativo de Budapeste, apresenta neste livro uma descrição de uma das grandes cidades da Europa em seu apogeu - um retrato cultural e histórico de Budapeste - seu panorama, sons e habitantes, a comunidade artística, sua dinâmica de classes e política, o papel essencial desempenhado por sua população judia - e a descrição que acompanha a ascensão da cidade e seu declínio no turbilhão do século XX.

O discurso inaugural de Churchill como primeiro-ministro, em maio de 1940, foi duro como os tempos que se anunciavam. Apesar de não ter recebido aplausos da plateia, já preparava os britânicos para o que estava por vir - cinco longos anos de guerra e sofrimento. Muito antes da maioria, Churchill reconheceu o poder de Hitler e o vigor das forças alemãs. O estadista sabia o quanto era importante enfrentá-los - mais do que a defesa de um país, tratava-se da luta pela liberdade e pelos valores mais caros à civilização ocidental. Nesta obra, o historiador e contador de histórias John Lukacs discute esse discurso, que marcou o início de uma nova forma de ver a Segunda Guerra que se iniciava.

"Churchill''s first speech as Prime Minister"--Jkt.