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Generally speaking it is not in keeping with our character to use big words. We are a phlegmatic people who do not readily give way to sensational expressions. Everything aiming at theatrical effects appears to us unreal.
Notwithstanding, in the subject of this study I venture to make use of the words “world crisis”. I can readily imagine that from various sides objections would be raised against doing so. Would it not be considered an exaggeration to classify the tension in these postwar times under the heading of a world crisis? We must therefore be fully aware of what we are aiming at in connecting the words “world” and “crisis”.
Let me start by saying that it is not because the tensions in which we live comprise the whole world. It is true that the problems we are confronted with are de facto the same in England as in the Balkans; we find them in France, and at the same time in Indonesia. All over the world there is no culture-loving nation which has not been cast into the turmoil of these times. And yet that does not justify the use of the word world-crisis. That which is being enacted at the present moment, not only exceeds in extent but also in intensity every previous upheaval. Treasures of culture have been destroyed, centuries-old monuments have been demolished, ancient traditions have been broken, the social and economic structures of Europe and Asia have been revolutionized.
Bertrand Russell relates in “The Listener” how in the fifth century before Christ the historical interpretation of Herodotus was based on