Blitz
<Bronze Donator>
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Definitely adding the 2nd book to the list. Good review, sounds like it's right in my wheel house.Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 by Christopher Clark
The first half of this history was much more engaging than the second half, though I don't think that is a problem with the author, but rather the state of the world. Reading about modern problems, such as unions, medical insurance and railroads is incredibly boring. Especially when the first half of the book is filled with aristocratic warriors, religious pilgrims and great kings. There is no poetry in the second half.
Yet I found fault with the author's voice, though that could have been a projection on my part. I got the distinct impression that the author is a modern person, who disregarded the religious views of various factions throughout German history and triumphed the leftist/socialist views of the 1920/30s.
I would recommend the first half of the book but when Bismarck shows up and the German Empire is established check out, you will just be wading through the malaise of the modern world.
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The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History by Mircea Eliade
Good book. Changed the way I look at history and I now believe that we (in modern American society) do history all wrong. That is coming from someone with a degree in history.
When a modern person is trying to find meaning in the world or a mode of being, they look back at history. To a modern person history is a timeline of figures and events, each with their own special significance.
A modern person tallies up those events and figures and gives themself an idea of how they should act in the world and what the world means to them.
But this means the person has little room to maneuver. They are constrained by history, at the forefront of which they stand.
An archaic person has no such problem as they did not recognize history as we do. History to an archaic person was a set of categories (war, harvest, death) and a cast of heroes (fire bringer, dragon slayer).
To explain the world and how they should move within it the archaic person place the event before them into a mythical category and them embodied the hero, doing as they did, and this was the model that taught them how to deal with the world.
The archaic person was not constrained by history, with its two thousand years worth of weight. They were guided by mythology.
Example; there is a war and a group of young men are sent off to fight. A modern man would see that history is a sequence of wars in which the common soldier gets chewed up and killed while the generals get all the glory. He becomes depressed and hopeless and his world becomes a dark place.
An archaic man who goes off to fight in this war has a category for it; this is the same as the conflict between good and evil (the gods and the devils) that he can now participate in. He has his model of the hero and therefore knows how to act. Even if he dies, death is simply the next step and he will be welcomed into the host of heroes anyway.
I read this near abouts when I read Julius Evola’s “Metaphysics of War” and I think they go along well together. I would also suggest one read “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Marie Remarque and “Storm of Steel” by Ernst Junger immediately after. I feel these two books about the First World War offer an amazing example of how modern and archaic man react to the same situation.
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