ABSTRACT
The Age of Extremes is written both as history and memory. The author lived through it, it is his age as it is ours who are old enough to make the claim, and he avowedly feels deeply about it, even as a spectator or mi nor participant. History and memory, as he says, are correctives of each other. You can look something up. But you can also remember, “No, it wasn’t like that at all.” You can’t do this with the Peloponnesian War. Yet the Peloponnesian War took place in an era that is finished, so we can un derstand that war in its entire con text. Our era isn’t over. We do not even know if we are at its beginning, middle, or end. That, of course, never stopped anyone from having strong opinions on the subject. As observ ers of our own times we have both advantages and disadvantages.
