This is a collection of Professor Preston King's essays on the history of ideas.

Professor King's concept of the philosophy of history leads him to offer this demonstration of the incoherence, even absurdity, of the notion that the past can have nothing to teach us - whether posed by those who argue that history is "unique" or that it is merely "contextual".

'King argues his thesis, both in general and in relation to individual thinkers, with considerable subtlety and insight, and no serious historian of ideas can afford to ignore its implications.' - Times Literary Supplement'King provides a most substantive and enlightening introduction, guiding the reader through the various essays and reconstructing what is a most original version of the complex link between past and present ... the relevance of the collection in the present climate can hardly be exaggerated.' - History of Political Thought