A collection of 17 essays on the little known thinker Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, one of the first academics to resign his post in Germany when Hitler came to power.

The contributions of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (1888-1973), one of the most profound and original thinkers of the twentieth century, span several disciplines in the humanities--history, philosophy, sociology, linguistics, religion--although his work is ultimately uncategorizable. In 1933, immediately upon the ascent of Hitler, he emigrated to the United States from Germany, taught at Harvard for two years, and then at Dartmouth College until 1957. His voice was prophetic, urgent, compelling, and it remains relevant. This collection of essays is by a retired professor of history who was a student of Rosenstock-Huessy's in the 1950s and found his lecturing transformative. It is not a nostalgic book, however. It is written with the conviction that Rosenstock-Huessy still needs to be heard, more urgently than ever for the betterment of humankind.

This book makes the first volume of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy’s Soziologie available in English for the first time since its 1956 publication in German. Rosenstock-Huessy argues that social philosophy has favored abstract and spatially contrived categories of social organization over temporal processes. This preference for space-thinking has diverted us from recognizing the power of speech and its relationship to living on the front lines of life. Taking speech and the social responsibilities and reciprocities that accompany naming as the key to social reality, In the Cross of Reality provides a sociological exploration of “play” spaces as the basis for reflexivity. It also explores the spaces of activity and their correlation in war and peace to the spheres of “serious life.” If we are to survive and flourish, different qualities and reciprocal relationships must be cultivated so that we can deal with different fronts of life. Arguing that modern intellectuals and their obsession with space have created a dangerously false choice between mechanical and aesthetic salvation, Rosenstock-Huessy clears a path so that we better appreciate our relationship between past and future in founding and in partitioning time.

An ethics of timing--each moment in time requires a responsible answer. New values emerge with new challenges, but we also draw from former learning experiences, values, and human qualities. How does social dialogue create a common support base for dealing with change? How can economics and politics be effectively organized by such interaction? How to answer questions of intercultural management and peace to prevent a clash of civilizations? Differences should not be erased; instead, they should be coordinated by timely alternation. By listening to the times we are in and to each other, we create a common standard of understanding of the way forward. The heritage of Western (and perhaps Christian) modernity can be coordinated with older layers of culture and management from the East and the South to make planetary biographies. For instance, once the planets in the sky were constantly on the move in always-surprising windings. Now, human individuals have to find their way by making creative use of the existing value repertoire of many traditions. Such a type of intercultural management contributes to the re-creation of the planet. In the process, people find their personal destination in a unique planetary biography.