Anthropology is the most scientific of humanities, the most humanistic of sciences. (1964) - Eric Wolf

The German catastrophe was of course the vortex of other catastrophes : Jewish, French, Gypsy, Polish and Russian, to name but a few way stations on the descent into hell. What the National Socialists wrought is, without a doubt, a cause of moral outrage, but outrage is not enough. It is vital that we gain an analytic purchase on what transpired, precisely because it embodied a possibility for humankind, and what was humanly possible can happen again.

The development of industrial capitalism did not move in a smooth ascending line.

If history is the working out of a more moral purpose in time, then those who lay claim to that purpose are by that fact the predilect agents of history.