2016 Reprint of 1924 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Huizinga had an aesthetic approach to history, where art and spectacle played an important part. This is his most famous work, wherein he here reinterpreted the Late Middle Ages as a period of pessimism and decadence rather than rebirth. "The Waning of the Middle Ages" is his masterpiece, a study of the forms of life of fifteenth-century France and Burgundy, based upon his critical reading of aesthetic and philological sources normally overlooked by the working historian....

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,...

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,...