What is the Study About? The Paradigms of the Human Predicament

Abstract

This book is an attempt to look at world history from a particular point of view, a point of view which, being of cardinal importance for every human being, represents a key element of human culture and cuts across all levels of sophistication in society. This is the question of the human predicament, i.e. the sense that people make of their life and their death. Without trying to answer the question of the extent to which people really ponder the sense of their life, we may assume that most of them have at least some dim idea of what they want or can expect from their life, and also — at least when they approach that point — how they should best cope with their death.