Past and Present

What history teaches us: writers and theorists on the lessons of the past

History, the collective experience of Mankind, teaches us about the present and the future. How do we look at events of the past? Do they help to solve our present political or economic conditions and conflicts?

The essays in this anthology derive from the Engelsberg Seminar in 2019 that dealt with these questions. From perspectives as varied as the History of Ideas, Evolutionary Psychology, and Ideologies – amongst others – the writers apply history to today’s concerns such as International Relations, Geopolitics, Economics, and the role of the individual and human nature in history. Perhaps it is only through applied history that we can find our way forward.