First published in English in 1953, this important book from eminent philosopher Karl Jaspers deals with the philsophy of the history of mankind. More specifically, its avowed aim is to assist in heightening our awareness of the present by placing it within the framework of the long obscurity of prehistory and the boundless realm of possibilities which lie within the undecided future.This analysis is split into 3 parts: World history The present and the future The meaning of history

Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) was a German psychiatrist and philosopher and one of the most original European thinkers of the twentieth century. As a major exponent of existentialism in Germany, he had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry and philosophy. He was Hannah Arendt’s supervisor before her emigration to the United States in the 1930s and himself experienced the consequences of Nazi persecution. He was removed from his position at the University of Heidelberg in 1937, due to his wife being Jewish. Published in 1949, the year in which the Federal Republic of Germany was founded, The Origin and Goal of History is a vitally important book. It is renowned for Jaspers' theory of an 'Axial Age', running from the 8th to the 3rd century BCE. Jaspers argues that this period witnessed a remarkable flowering of new ways of thinking that appeared in Persia, India, China and the Greco-Roman world, in striking parallel development but without any obvious direct cultural contact between them. Jaspers identifies key thinkers from this age, including Confucius, Buddha, Zarathustra, Homer and Plato, who had a profound influence on the trajectory of future philosophies and religions. For Jaspers, crucially, it is here that we see the flowering of diverse philosophical beliefs such as scepticism, materialism, sophism, nihilism, and debates about good and evil, which taken together demonstrate human beings' shared ability to engage with universal, humanistic questions as opposed to those mired in nationality or authoritarianism. At a deeper level, The Origin and Goal of History provides a crucial philosophical framework for the liberal renewal of German intellectual life after 1945, and indeed of European intellectual life more widely, as a shattered continent attempted to find answers to what had happened in the preceding years. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Christopher Thornhill.

First published in English in 1953, this important book from eminent philosopher Karl Jaspers deals with the philsophy of the history of mankind. More specifically, its avowed aim is to assist in heightening our awareness of the present by placing it within the framework of the long obscurity of prehistory and the boundless realm of possibilities which lie within the undecided future.This analysis is split into 3 parts: World history The present and the future The meaning of history

Churchward’s The Origin and Evolution of Religion, first published in 1924, explores the history and development of different religions worldwide, from the religious cults of magic and fetishism to contemporary religions such as Christianity and Islam. This text is ideal for students of theology.

Written during the early 1920s, at a time when Europe was still recovering from the catastrophe of the First World War, L.V. Birck’s The Scourge of Europe examines the economic issues surrounding the existence of public debt, its history, and possible approaches to problems associated with public debt as they were being pursued by the great powers of the time. Birck’s analysis contains a rigorous theoretical exposition and explanation of public debt as it was understood in the crucial period leading up to the Great Depression. This is then followed by an insightful exploration of the role of public debt in European financial and economic history. Finally, some reflections on the policies of England, the United States, France and Germany in the latter part of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries are included. This book will appeal to economic and financial historians, as well as to those generally interested in European policies towards debt from the Middle Ages to modern times.

First published in 1954, this book explores the political ideas of the Middle Ages. It covers the period from the investiture struggle to the end of the fifteenth century and provides comprehensive readings of otherwise inaccessible source material. Each chapter begins with an introductory essay on the subject at hand that leads to a number of translated passages, numerous enough to display a variety of opinion and long enough to indicate the process of thought as well as its conclusions. This book is the second of a two volume set and will be useful to teachers and advanced students of political theory and medieval history. Topics discussed in this volume include authority in the Church, the problem of the Empire and the relationship between the Church and the State.

While artificial intelligence (AI), robots, bio-technologies and digital media are transforming work, culture, and social life, there is little understanding of or agreement about the scope and significance of this change. This new interpretation of the ‘great transformation’ uses history and evolutionary theory to highlight the momentous shift in human consciousness taking place. Only by learning from recent crises and rejecting technological determinism will governments and communities redesign social arrangements that ensure we all benefit from the new and emerging technologies. The book documents the transformations under way in financial markets, entertainment, and medicine, affecting all aspects of work and social life. It draws on historical sociology and co-evolutionary theory arguing that the radical evolution of human consciousness and social life now under way is comparable with, if not greater than, the agrarian revolution (10000 BCE), the explosion of science, philosophy, and religion in the Axial Age (600 BCE), and the recent Industrial Revolution. Turning to recent major socio-economic crisis, and asking what can be learnt from them, the answer is we cannot afford this time around to repeat the failures of elites and theoretical systems such as economics to attend appropriately to radical change. We need to think beyond the constraints of determinist and reductionist explanations and embrace the idea of deep freedom. This book will appeal to educators, social scientists, policy-makers, business leaders, and students. It concludes with social design principles that can inform deliberative processes and new social arrangements that ensure everyone benefits from the affordances of the new and emerging technologies.