Preface

History is a multifaceted discipline which may be studied many ways. A given era or civilization may be analyzed in terms of political, economic and social history; biographical, cultural and intellectual history; etc., etc. One might think that with all the history that has been written, there would be no new way left to view the record of the past, but it appears that one facet of the discipline has been overlooked.

Specialists in intellectual history have tended to treat the development of the Western mind as a progressive triumph of intelligence over simple ignorance or perhaps stupidity. However, stupidity itself was usually dealt with as an aside or an aggravating, exceptional condition which just happened to exist because of the specifics of the moment. Each individual example was presented as if it were some kind of historical accident due to the perverse minds involved, and then attention was focused on how people overcame that particular brand of idiocy. The fact that in every civilization, in every age, the historical record is replete with examples of stupidity was lost on everyone. This is an analysis of that facet of our past which has heretofore never been examined in its own right.

As one of the universals of the historical record, stupidity warrants our attention now more than ever, as its costs have increased to the point that we no longer can afford it as we have in the past. Hopefully, by studying this aspect of our behavior, we might learn how to reduce the incidence of this phenomenon in the future. However, if nothing else, at least we will gain a fuller understanding of how we became who and what we are as we add another perspective to historical analysis.

In that regard, a qualification is very much in order. This is not a book for the professional historian. It is loaded with glittering generalities to which there are invariably exceptions. By way of explanation and apology, I can plead only that the overwhelming mass of material made it necessary to sacrifice both breadth and depth in this introductory endeavor. It would have been easy to have doubled the length of this book but only at the risk of losing the general reader, to whom it is directed. Likewise, each chapter could easily be expanded into a book of this length, and perhaps some specialists will do so in the future. Certainly, the need is there if we are to understand ourselves.

A further word is in order about the parenthetical dates which follow the names of some of the individuals in the text. In the cases of rulers (i.e., kings, emperors and Popes), the dates refer to reigns. For others,they indicate the dates of birth and death. Seldom are the specific dates important. They are included as sign posts to give the non-historian some idea of when the events being discussed occurred and are even omitted in cases where the context itself makes the approximate dating clear.

Finally, let me express my gratitude to all the helpful resource librarians at the Floyd Memorial Library in Greenport, New York, and to Mrs. Maria Heaney in particular. Her assistance in nailing down details and references was invaluable and very much appreciated.

JFW

Orient, NY

September, 1988

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