INVENIRE

Every avid reader has a book they liked the most. However, they may not assign this book the title of “classic” or “great”. Although all classics entertain and make for good reads, entertainment value alone does not earn that title. Speaking to societal constants, classics are the declaratory statements of a people. Classic works of literature captivate public imagination for generations after publication and exemplify that which is most valuable in a culture. When we collate such works, they form a coherent retelling of a people’s history; we should defend such work from modern fevers that aim to denounce them as anachronistic and undeserving of elevation within a culture. Shakespeare is the gold standard in English literature. All authors, irrespective of their era, are judged against him and his work has been immortalised in school curricula and the English cultural consciousness. But why? We guarantee no other author the right to be taught in English secondary schools year after ye

Historians are not merely retellers of the past. Their work demands an intellectual struggle. After discerning what occurred from various, often contradictory, sources, historians must then place these events in the context of one another. There are various methods of performing the latter; these methods are known as philosophies of history. Philosophies of history attempt to make sense of the thousands of years of recorded human existence by asking a few key questions. Is there an overarching meaning to the events of human history? Is there a direction to history?  If so, what is history's direction? Is the direction linear? If it is linear, does this mean circumstances are improving?   In politics, ideologies are the vehicles of policy. But where do ideologies come from? All ideologies are the offspring of philosophies of history. If you believe material conditions to be the vehicle of historical change, you are a Marxist. If you believe history to be a constant ascendancy toward