History repeats itself

January 2, 2022 11:49 PM

Looking for book recommendations on the theme/thesis of "history repeating itself".

I'm looking for some book recommendations that discuss the themes of history repeating itself. Open to any and all interpretations (e.g. similarities in the way societies react to traumatic events across time or the rise of certain political movements, explicit comparisons of current events with events that have occurred in the past, cyclic nature of markets) and approaches (e.g. historical/political/social/economic/medical/philosophical). I've just been thinking about this recently and would like to read what other people have to say about it. Mostly looking for non-fiction though if you have works of fiction that fits the theme well I'd love to hear about it as well. I'd like to prioritize works that directly addresses the theme, and readability / understandability for the layman reader. Thank you & if you could say a few words to summarize your recommendation I'd appreciate that very much!

posted by dragonfruit to Society & Culture (10 answers total)

The most classic expression of the idea (in modern, Western philosophy) is Marx’s 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon:

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Caussidière for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the Montagne of 1848 to 1851 for the Montagne of 1793 to 1795, the nephew for the uncle. And the same caricature occurs in the circumstances of the second edition of the Eighteenth Brumaire.

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language…

posted by Fiasco da Gama at 1:00 AM on January 3, 2022 [5 favorites]

Giambattista Vico, The New Science:

Relying on a complex etymology, Vico argues in the Scienza Nuova that civilization develops in a recurring cycle (ricorso) of three ages: the divine, the heroic, and the human. Each age exhibits distinct political and social features and can be characterized by master tropes or figures of language. The giganti of the divine age rely on metaphor to compare, and thus comprehend, human and natural phenomena. In the heroic age, metonymy and synecdoche support the development of feudal or monarchic institutions embodied by idealized figures. The final age is characterized by popular democracy and reflection via irony; in this epoch, the rise of rationality leads to barbarie della reflessione or barbarism of reflection, and civilization descends once more into the poetic era. Taken together, the recurring cycle of three ages – common to every nation – constitutes for Vico a storia ideale eterna or ideal eternal history. Therefore, it can be said that all history is the history of the rise and fall of civilizations, for which Vico provides evidence (up until, and including the Graeco-Roman historians).
posted by thelonius at 1:31 AM on January 3, 2022

It’s a little tangential, but I’m wondering whether the Kim Stanley Robinson novel The Years of Rice and Salt would interest you. More in the "history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes" vein if I recall correctly. Reincarnation is used as a framing device to tell a cohesive story across centuries, and in some sense this generates the rhyme.
posted by eirias at 4:43 AM on January 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

The phrase you're looking for is historic recurrence.

You might also find Wikipedia's "social cycle theory" page interesting.
posted by underclocked at 5:42 AM on January 3, 2022

I highly recommend The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 6:04 AM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

...And Forgive Them Their Debts by Michael Hudson
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 6:40 AM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

Oh and I would summarize it as an interesting book about debt and debt cancellation. There's a lot of information and the writing is kind of all over the place but I think it's absolutely grokkable by your average reader. The subtitle is "Lending, Foreclosure And Redemption From Bronze Age Finance To The Jubilee Year"
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 6:50 AM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

A Canticle for Leibowitz is the fictional work that comes to mind.
posted by credulous at 8:29 AM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

For fiction, Kate Atkinson's "Life after Life" comes to mind as well.
posted by nkknkk at 10:43 AM on January 3, 2022

Thucydides I.22.4, much discussed by scholars, in Hobbes' translation: "To hear this history rehearsed, for that there be inserted in it no fables, shall be perhaps not delightful. But he that desires to look into the truth of things done and which (according to the condition of humanity) may be done again, or at least their like, he shall find enough herein to make him think it profitable. And it is compiled rather for an everlasting possession than to be rehearsed for a prize." Also, ancient historian AR Burn, orally: "History does not repeat itself, geography does."
posted by diodotos at 11:55 AM on January 3, 2022