Vol.:(0123456789) The Journal of Value Inquiry https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-018-9665-6 1 3 BOOK REVIEW Brett Bowden, The Strange Persistence of Universal History in Political Thought Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, $69.99, Hbk and sftc, ISBN 978-3-319-52409-2 and ISBN 978-3-319-84899-0 Michael J. Douma 1 © Springer Nature B.V. 2018 Bowden’s The Strange Persistence of Universal History in Political Thought is a strange book. It is also a book worth reading and thinking about. It is strange because it is only 88 pages long, the main thesis hardly appears before the fnal chapter, and an abnormally large percent of the text consists of quoted material. It is worth reading, however, frst as a history of the writing of universal history, and second as a way to think about the way our concepts of history shape society. What is universal history? The very last lines of the book provide a defnition: “the idea that all peoples are destined to share the same history” with the consequence that “not everyone gets to write their own history.” Bowden argues that when the belief in universal history reigns, the history of some people becomes “subsumed and assimilated into other people’s narratives.” (p. 88) In this way, Bowden contrasts universal history with pluralist history, with the multiple, sometimes interacting strands of individual and group stories. The frst four chapters of the book is a history of universal history, which Bowden rightly sees as a project of the enlightenment. Just as Western scientists in the 18 th century wanted to categorize all of nature, so Western historians wanted to fnd meaning and order in history. And like with the natural scientists, these historians felt that the best way to understand the big picture was to collect facts far and wide and integrate them in extensive treatises. They sought a comprehensive, unifed pic- ture of history that might illuminate truth. This was a revolutionary concept intend- ing to rationally bind all people in one story. Bowden provides little explanation of the diferences between universal history, speculative history, philosophy of history, or historicism. Such distinctions might be useful, however, in tracing what it is specifcally about universal history which per- sists. Writers like Schlegel (who is missing in this text), bridged the divide between * Michael J. Douma mjd289@georgetown.edu 1 McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA