History as the Story of Liberty.

Abstract

Written in 1938 when Western world had succumbed to notion that history is a creature of blind force. A reviewer at time noted importance of Croce's belief that the central trend in evolution of man is unfolding of new potentialities, and that task of historian is to discover and emphasise this trend: story of liberty. As Croce himself writes, Even in darkest and crassest times liberty trembles in lines of poets and affirms itself in pages of thinkers and burns, solitary and magnificent, in some men who cannot be assimilated by world around them. The first edition in English of History as Story of appeared in London in 1941. The new Liberty Fund edition includes modest improvements to translation by Folke Leander and arranged by Claes Ryn.