Myth of the Eternal Return
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
Myth of the Eternal Return
| Full title | The Myth of the Eternal Return: Or, Cosmos and History |
|---|---|
| Author | Mircea Eliade |
| Published | 1949 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Mircea Eliade’s 1949 study of how archaic societies understood time: as cyclical and repeatable, with rituals re-enacting a founding act and each new year abolishing the old. The modern West’s acceptance of history as irreversible leaves people exposed to what he calls the terror of history — and before asking what good historical method is, it helps to see that most societies did not think historically at all. |
Myth of the Eternal Return
Where I heard about it
- University of Austin — assigned in History, Historiography, and the Philosophy of History, alongside Collingwood and Nietzsche, on its Fall 2025 reading list, November 2025. Full curriculum: UATX Fall Reading List.
About this edition
Published in French in 1949 and translated into English in 1954 — for a period under the title Cosmos and History. Eliade reads faith as one of the few available answers to the terror of history.
Connections
- UATX Fall Reading List — the curriculum this is assigned in.
- The Idea of History · On the Genealogy of Morals — the other two texts assigned in the same course.
- History — the argument is about what it costs to believe history is real and irreversible.
- Religion — Eliade’s field was comparative religion, and ritual is his evidence.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.