Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
To understand social processes in history or today, how far is it useful to think in terms of phases, cycles, or curves of learning or growth? Professional historians have been distinctly cool in answering: “The individual emerges as being more highly conditioned by history than prima facie we had imagined”; there are group forces at work, and the study of these forces can tell us something of what individuals are and are not likely to do. So much can be admitted. But to trace a pattern in the longer processes and wider sweep of events is another matter, and a much more doubtful one.
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