Homo Ludens

In Homo Ludens, Johan Huizinga defines play as the central activity in flourishing societies. He identifies five characteristics of play: it is free; it is not “ordinary” or “real” life; it is distinct from “ordinary” life both as to locality and duration; it creates order; it is connected with no material interest, and from it no profit can be gained. With cross-cultural examples from the humanities, business, and politics, Huizinga examines play in all its diverse guises—as it relates to language, law, war, knowledge, poetry, myth, philosophy, art, and much more. As he writes, “Civilization is, in its earliest phases, played. It does not come from play like a baby detaching itself from the womb: it arises in and as play, and never leaves it.” Starting with Plato, Huizinga traces the contribution of “man the player” through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and early modern world. With an eye for our own times he writes: “In American politics [play] is even more evident. Long before the two-party system had reduced itself to two gigantic teams whose political differences were hardly discernible to an outsider, electioneering in America had developed into a kind of national sport.” With its remarkable historical sweep, Homo Ludens defines play for generations to come.

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Homo Ludens

Author

Johan Huizinga

Publisher

Angelico Press

Format

Paperback

Pages

232

Size

8.5 x 5.5 Inches

ISBN

9781621389996

About the author

Johan Huizinga

Johan Huizinga (1872–1945) was aDutch cultural historian renowned for his works like The Autumn of the Middle Ages and Homo Ludens. His career at the Universities of Groningen and Leiden was marked by significant contributions to cultural history and criticism of mass culture.A vocal critic of Fascism, he was detained by the Nazis in 1942 and died in exile in 1945, shortly before the end of World War II.