My name is E.G. Ban, I live in Israel and I am a historian. There are a number of yellowing parchments that prove that I went through a process that Universities deemed necessary for the education of future historians. However, I did not make use of my diplomas and haven't selected a road that leads to an academic career. There are two main reasons why that choice was not taken.
I am a non-conformist by nature, and I think that Political Correctness is scientifically approved fibbing at worst and gentle obfuscation at best, so I have chosen to be an Independent Scholar. A rare vocation today, but in the 18th and 19th centuries it was quite common. Edward Gibbon was one of them, so were Charles Darwin and Oswald Spengler. To be an Independent Scholar one needs to have an inner urge to find answers to some basic question, where one knows that the answer is neither conformistic nor Politically Correct, and, of course, some measure of financial independence. That independence may range from a large inherited fortune, as had Edward Gibbon, to a modest inheritance, as had Oswald Spengler, which allowed him to stop being a teacher of history and become a philosopher of history. Without comparing myself to any of those mentioned above, this is the choice I have made. I seek neither money nor recognition. I simply wish to make use of the tremendous power of the Web to propagate my ideas to all those who are interested in the basic questions of human history and who might make use of them. If the ideas are worthy, people will look for them. If not, they will be discarded, and that is how it should be. History is deterministic. It means, that in historical processes there is no free will. It is a theory, which is probably easier to accept logically than to digest it emotionally. Some claim that only individuals shaped history. Deterministic history disagrees with it and claims that individuals, however exalted they may be, are nothing more than labels to be put on historical processes. If not they, then the same events would be covered by different names. Admittedly, it is a difficult theory to accept. It exists probably on the same emotional level as the conscious knowledge of personal mortality. It is well known, but is repressed nevertheless, until it cannot be repressed any more. The same about the knowledge that history is deterministic. As an example, people prefer to think that Napoleon has shaped the history of Europe in his time, and if not him, then history would have been different. Nobody really cares about Napoleon any more, but if he was an independent actor then probably we are too. If not, then that fact puts all human efforts on the level of senseless self-delusion. Charles Murray, the co-author of the Bell Curve, wrote in one his articles, that genetic research expands knowledge at such a speed, that until the end of the 21st century we will approach biological truth about how human nature in individuals produce social and political institutions. If it will come true, then it will change the study of history from being a form of art to being one of social sciences. I dedicate this homepage to a preliminary study of deterministic history in the hope that it will advance the study of real history as described above. It consists of a number books and articles, which are illustrations to the guiding principles and a last one, which defines the principles of history, based on determinism. Three of the books are already written, the others are either in research or in the process of writing and editing. There are also Essays, which were written as drafts for thoughts that were or eventually will be incorporated into the books. The illustrative books have one idea in common. Three of them describe actual problems that our world faces. The fourth analyzes a well-known mythological tale, that of the Book of Genesis of the Old Testament, to evaluate whether those mythological tales have some real historical foundations. The fifth book shows the scientific basis of the theory. It is left to the end of the series, as the first four books are to be used as illustrations to the principles. In addition to the books, there are Links, leading to a collection of addresses of historical and archaeological sites, which were used during the research. Visitors to this homepage are invited to check the Links. They might find interesting material. Comments of few lines are added to each link, explaining its contents. | ||||||||
You are free to enter, read and download whatever you like. There are no restrictions or commitments whatever. At the bottom of the page there is an e-mail portal. If you so wish, you can use it for:
I know that SPAM is one of the major curses of the WEB. I can only promise that all e-mail addresses will be kept on a different, inaccessible computer, and no address will be given to any third party under any circumstances. |
