Worth a long ponder. I would like for history to tell me about human nature and good and bad (#4). Realistically it’s the details, consciousnessness raising re: risk, and vocabulary (#1, 2, 3) that prompt me to read. Must one reject the possibility of “transcendence”? History won’t get you there, to be sure. But you won’t get there without it, either.

Yet a further question: do we even want it? Transcendence, I mean. Posed.