2796124004

9 TJN D£BAT : ŁES MENTALITfiS COLLECTIYES 581

THE HISTORY OF MENTALITIES—A WAY TO AN

ALLCOMPRISING HISTORY

LUCIAN BOIA

The history of mentalities has recently emerged as an independent field of research. But, as circumscribed to the overall study of history, it appears as a much older concern. Historians have always been morę on le-^s aware of the fact that people from past times, or belonging to other civilizations, even contemporary, had their own system of thinking, their own hierarchy of values. Significant along this linę is the very work of Herodotus, the founder of history. He looked with real interest at the most varied civilizations of his tiine, tried to grasp their specific naturę and to avoid over-simplitying opinions. He understood, in his way, that each of these civilizations madę up a self-governing structure, whieh could not have been considered from the angle of the Greek men-tality. That is why he avoids disapproving the usually very different ideas and ways of acting of his fellow citizens and emphasizes the rela-tivity of spiritual values: “If somebody would make all the peoples in the World choose the best customs on earth, each of them would still ehooce — after a long consideration — its own; and this stands as evidence of the extent to which they are convinced that their customs are really the besst.”

Thus, in a certain way, the history of mentalities has always •existed in the overall context of history. And, devoid of this dimension, the study of the past would get down to anachronism, noting appearances only and loosing connection with actual life, with the vitality of history. !Neveitheless, with no intention of denying the significance that works such as those of Jules Michelet, or Jakob Burckhardfs book Die Kultur der Kenaissance in Italien had to the mental factor, we must admit that up to the beginning of our century, history, in its essential features, remain-•ed mainly an aceount of noteworthy political erents. Considered at the scalę of the whole historiographic amount of work, the excursions through the fields of collective life, both under the socio-economic and the mental angle, appear on a secondary level, as an appendage to the first. It is only the “historiographic revolution” of the 20th century that has revers-od the terms of this relation, confening a privileged position to the •collectiTe structures and events, therefore, to the history of mentalities.

Mental history became a really independent field between the two world wars, due to the interaction of various agents. It is first, the wery evolution of scientific history, morę and morę concerned with approach-ing the past in sociological terms. A truły complete history could not have avoided the study of spiritual images so strongly connected with that of materiał structures. The crisis of western civilization, manifest after the First World War, had a great impact on the new historiographic studies <Oswald 9pengler’s book, Der Untergang des Ahendlandes, was published