This books seeks to address these questions. They arise natu rally once we ask whether there is such a thing as progress, and whether we can construct a coherent and directional Universal History of mankind. Totalitarianisms of the Right and Left have kept us too busy to consider the latter question seriously for the better part of this century. But the fading of these totalitarian isms, as the century comes to an end, invites us to raise this old question one more time.