Jacob Burckhardt: Force and Freedom. Reflections on History

Zusammenfassung

It is a real pleasure to announce the translation of a great work of a wise man. Burckhardt (1818–1897) was so great in his modesty and in his critical judgment on modern publicity that he never cared for the publication of his lectures on history in general, on the history of the Greek culture, and on the history of art. He published only four volumes out of the fourteen of the complete German edition: the Cicerone, A guide to the enjoyment of the works of art of Italy, The Age of Constantine the Great, and The Culture of the Renaissance in Italy. Only through these works Burckhardt was hitherto known in English-speaking countries. His most popular works were the Cicerone and the Renaissance. Consequently English and American historians labelled him an esthete. They did not realize that his worship of beauty and his early escape to Italia Diis sacra were in themselves a deliberate flight from his political despair caused by the revolutionary movements of 1830–1848 and by the democratic wave of the future of the nineteenth century in general. He had much deeper insights into the real conditions of societies and states than many a political historian and sociologist without a philosophy of life in the background of their specialized interests. Though he was a great scholar and educator, he did not believe in modern research-work and mass-education.