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This is an essay on mankind's experience of history and its
interpretation, beginning with a study of the traditional or mythological view,
and concluding with a comparative estimate of modern historiological approaches.
In traditional societies the historical emphasis is placed on the permanence and
continuity of the archetypal forms: man lives, so to speak, in a state of perpetual
beginning. In the modern world two orientations prevail: the traditional, of cyclic
time, denying the concept of history advancing in time (Brahmanism, Buddhism,
the Edda, Platonism, etc.); and that of progressive time, stressing change
and beset by a sense of sin (Judaism, Christianity). Now, at a moment when modern
man has brought his race almost to the point of annihilation, the historical attitude
has been all but discredited. The author seeks an answer to the question: What
can protect us from the terror of history? Dr. Eliade,
born in Bucharest in 1907, is now a resident of France. He has studied in India
(University of Calcutta, and a period in a Himalayan ashram investigating yoga),
Romania (Ph.D., University of Bucharest), Italy, Switzerland, and France. During
the war he was in the Romanian diplomatic service, and later he taught at the
Sorbonne. His publications include Traite d'histoire du religions (1949),
Le Chamanisme (1951), Images et symbols (1952) and Le Yoga:
Immortalite et liberte (1954). The Myth of
the Eternal Return has been translated also into German, Italian, Portuguese,
Spanish, and Swedish. It is Dr. Eliade's first publication in America.
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