The Irreversibility of History

Extract

One of the characteristic features of our time is the growth of its historical sense. The reason for this development is clear : we have lived more history than any other epoch in the evolution of mankind. In the past, during that short period of historical stability which—cum grano salis— characterized the forty-three years between the French-German War of 1870-71 and World War I, a person could live without being interested in history. In our days such an attitude is no longer possible. We may try in vain to take no interest in history. History takes interest in us, in each of us. The last half-century showed us that to understand history is of equal importance to those who make it and to those who endure it. After having gone through two world wars and being confronted with the threat of a third one, people of my generation finally learned to understand that history is a perpetual collective becoming, of which each individual is, willy-nilly, a part. At the cost of great sacrifices we have acquired a new sense unknown to our fathers : a historical sense which guides us in life. As the seagull has a sense for meteorological storms, man, in the middle of the twentieth century, has developed a sense for historical storms : he feels the coming of wars and revolutions.