Assessments of Out of Revolution
The historian Page Smith considers this Rosenstock-Huessy’s greatest work in English. He wrote in his book, The Historian and History:
| “ | Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy was one of those Europeans who at the end of World War I decided that the war had made familiar categories of thought obsolete. He undertook, in a series of books and articles, to illuminate the relation between history and the human experience and to explicate the progress of man through history toward a common future. ... The revolutions of mankind, Huessy wrote, "create new time-spans for our life on earth. They give man’s soul a new relation between present, past, and future; and by doing so they give us time to start our life on earth all over again, with a new rhythm and a new faith." This is the framework for Huessy’s history of Europe and it may safely be said to be the first historical work written under the new dispensation. As such, it is of profound significance for contemporary history, but its very uniqueness has left it high and dry on the banks of academe. Nobody knew what to make of it because nobody had seen anything like it before. | ” |
Reinhold Niebuhr said of Out of Revolution:
| “ | Really a remarkable book, full of profound insights into the meaning of modern European history. I have not read a book in a long time which is so imaginative in relating the various economic, religious and political forces at play in modern history, to each other. Ordinary historical interpretations are pale and insipid in comparison with it. | ” |
Lewis Mumford said of Out of Revolution:
| “ | Rosenstock-Huessy’s is a powerful and original mind. What is most important in this philosopher’s work is the understanding of the relevance of traditional values to a civilization still undergoing revolutionary transformations; and this contribution will gain rather than lose significance in the future. | ” |
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