In this little book, Karl Popper worked out his earlier thoughts on the phenomenon of - what he called - historicism. This book was initially written in 1935 and revised multiple times before Popper published the final edition in 1957. In the meanwhile, Popper published his magnum opus, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1944), in which he describes the origins of the idea of historicist philosophy - he traces it back to Plato, and via Aristotle and Hegel to Marx.
I had already read The Open Society and Its Enemies and was curious if The Poverty of Historicism had to offer any new insights. And I can recommend reading this prequel to The Open Society to anyone! Popper is one of the clearest philosophers ever - he has the amazing gift of explaining the most abstract and dry material (e.g. logic) in a clear and concise way. Compare this to such bombastic philosophers like Hegel, Nietzsche, and Kant and you will never want to read continental philosophers anymore!
So what is this book exactly? The Poverty of Historicism is Popper's logical refutation of historicism. Historicism is the idea - very old, incidentally - that the philosopher can study history to find historical laws. By using these historical laws, the philosopher of history is able to not only understand the evolution of history but also - and more importantly - to make prophetical predictions about the future. This has to be clarified though since it is easy to misunderstand this position.
The historicist claims that history evolves according to laws of progress; history knows different stages and each stage has its own guiding laws. The laws of one stage aren't applicable in the preceding or following historical periods. The historicist, living in a particular historical period, is, therefore, by
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An objective account and analysis of the rise and fall of Polly Peck International once the darling of the London Stock Exchange in 80's as the best performing stock of the decade and its founder Asil Nadir. The author complemented his impeccable writing style by providing useful supplementary info about economy, commerce, finance, politics, business management and how the City operates based on his solid background and experience. Revised and expanded edition published in 93 covers Nadir's escape from UK to Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in May 93 after almost 3 years of his unsuccessful trial under bail by the inefficient British legal system then which involved the unorthodox and mostly unsuccessful attempts without necessary evidence by the newly founded (in 87) Serious Fraud Office SFO to convict him for fraud and corruption...
PS: First published in 1991 as "The Sultan of Berkeley Square: Asil Nadir and the Thatcher Years", the correct title of the 1993 edition of this book is "ASIL NADIR: FUGITIVE FROM INJUSTICE?" (ISBN 0-330-33155-8) where "IN" of injustice is in italics...
