An unusual work by the greatest French historian Philippe Aries, author of books that have long become rare in Russia: «A Man in the Face of Death» (Progress Academy, 1992) and «A Child and Family Life under the Old Order» (Ural University, 1999).
An unusual work by the greatest French historian Philippe Aries, author of books that have long become rare in Russia: «A Man in the Face of Death» (Progress Academy, 1992) and «A Child and Family Life under the Old Order» (Ural University, 1999). On the one hand, this is a kind of experience of French historiography, on the other hand, an autobiography. Aries tries to understand history as a construction created by historians, and historians as people of their time. Why does a conservative historian perceive history differently than a Marxist historian? What is a «sense of history»? Aries is convinced that historical experience is akin to religious and is based on a “pilgrimage for grace”, a feeling that “God is in the past”. In his opinion, the fascination with history is highly characteristic of the man of modern times: we do not imagine ourselves more free from the world. We are aware that we are in History, and we cannot imagine ourselves outside the succession of previous epochs.
OGI, 304 p.