The Meaning of History

The Meaning of History is the senior thesis written by Henry Kissinger at Harvard University in 1950. Here, Kissinger explores the work of three great thinkers in the Western philosophical and historical canon: Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), German historian and philosopher; and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), a Prussian of the European Enlightenment era and of the most important moral and political philosophers to emerge from his time.

The study wrestles with some of the first-order dilemmas of Western political, philosophical, and moral thought. Its scope ranges from the Enlightenment through to the midpoint of the twentieth century - an era scourged by two world wars and the advent of the nuclear age. Equally important, it provides great insight into the conceptual perspective of its author, Henry Kissinger, who was to become the most influential American scholar-statesman of the post-1945 period.

HENRY A. KISSINGER (b.1923) is an American scholar and diplomat who served as U.S. Secretary of State and Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs in the Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973.