The Estrangement of the Past: A Study in the Origins of Modern Historical Consciousness

by Anthony Kemp

In this strikingly bold and original work, Kemp argues that the Western idea of time reversed itself between the fourteenth and the eighteenth century from a static and syncretic image of a temporal world in which all time is uniform, the past is the arbiter of truth and all inherited knowledge is eternally viable, and no secrets lie hidden in time waiting to be revealed to a future age; to a dynamic and supersessive model of history in which the past dispenses only ignorance and error. Kemp describes these two opposed historical worlds, these "time texts," and traces the transition between them, its mechanism, and its motivation, concluding by drawing out the epistemological consequences of supersessive history for the modern intellect.

Genres: Philosophy, History

240 pages, Hardcover

First published November 22, 1990

Reviews

[withdrawn]

A book for lovers of historiography; for lovers of history of ideas. There's something here for those interested in medieval thought; for those interested in thought in early American history. At 178 pages of text it's easy to read, to understand and it sets the imagination loose in a multitude of directions. A wonderful book.

Note that I have taken twenty quotes from the book as I read. You can almost put the main thesis together from these. But not quite. The author, Anthony Kemp, also puts his conclusions forward quite concisely in the final two and a half pages of the book. It's a nice conclusion to the book but, as usual in a well written book, most of the fun is in getting there.

'The Estrangement of the Past' appeals to me for two reasons: 1) it is an intelligent, well written, academic exploration of 'time' in history; and, 2) it appeals to my 'Charles Taylor' conception of 'Social Imaginaries'; the concept that certain social norms, which change over time and which we learn within our society, form the basis of our values and beliefs.

For the first, Kemp analyses the concept of history developed in early Christian times to create a unified view of history in which there was no real change. The time of Christ and the apostles was fixed in an eternal moment and nothing could change until Christ's return. Kemp traces the origin of this concept through Eusebius, Augustine and Orosius, as well as later thinkers.

The spell of this form of thinking was broken by the Reformation. Luther and subsequent Protestant thinkers, in challenging the Catholic Church fractured time by introducing change into the system. In their view, the Catholic Church itself, had broken with the eternal unified conception of the world to be found in Christ and the Bible. The Protestants saw themselves as reinstating the unity, and thus, by defeating the Catholic Church, returning to the pure vision of Christ and the Bible in faith.

This possibility was denied to the Protestants however as a multiplicity of sects arose. A unified view of history was replaced by a 'supersessive' view. Each attempt to fix time, to return to the unity of Christ and the Bible was superseded by another. Interestingly, Kemp takes the reader to the origins of the American colonies to develop these ideas. This allows him to develop his explorations on this side of the Atlantic later, but I couldn't help but wonder where we would have arrived if he had turned to someone like John Knox in Scotland.

After looking into writings of several Puritans, (William Bradford, Edward Johnson, Cotton Mather), he takes us into the thought of the likes of Unitarians, Nietzsche and Emerson to move us into an era of unbelief and the rise of science. It is important to note that for Kemp, as with Charles Taylor, the development and belief (or rejection) in science comes subsequent to the changes in religious ideology.

Kemp brings the reader to 'modern' culture through the writing of Henry Adams (grandson and great grandson of American presidents) whose writings both yearn for a medieval ideology of history and a regretful acceptance of 'twentieth-century multiplicity '.

There may be a great deal to criticize in the little book, but it is brilliant. Read it and enjoy if you like history; a wonderful way to shape your worldview. There must be the germ of a few hundred M.A. and Ph.d. theses in here.

[Paul Gibson]

This is not the book I thought it might be but it is an interesting look at the Christian (mostly) view of time. Not for the faint of heart. There are many more implications about our current prevailing view of time: This is that it leads up to our current time and generally leads towards an end within this time. I've addressed this idea obliquely and I think I might address it more in upcoming books. The epilogue was worth the price of the book. This book got me to thinkin'.

[Callum]

I worship this book.

[Joyce]

Excellent book. Kemp's foray into the historiography of the Christian West results in a convincing argument about the dichotomy of a historical conception of time as static and unchanging, and another that conceived time as dynamic and history as unceasingly supersessive. Both conceptions of history and of time came about because of shifts in religious attitudes; the ideologies necessitated new concepts of history. The seismic shift to a modernist philosophy of history began, argues Kemp, with Luther's Reformation and the Renaissance of Petrarch.

This book is definitely written for the academic, and those with no prior experience with historiography may not want to approach it too quickly; but for those who can get past the academic jargon, the argument is well worth the read.