If you want to study the social and political history of modern

“If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell.” — Thus spoke Thomas Merton, the monk and mystic, who gazed upon the world not from the towers of power but from the stillness of contemplation. His words are heavy with sorrow and truth, for they unmask the dark mirror of civilization. Merton reminds us that beneath the banners of progress, beneath the speeches of justice and freedom, there lies a shadow — the hell that humanity builds when it forgets compassion. To study the history of nations, he says, is to witness not only glory and triumph, but greed, cruelty, and the endless war of man against man.

When Merton speaks of hell, he does not mean the inferno of myth or the punishment of the afterlife. He means the hell that is made on earth — the prisons of injustice, the battlefields soaked in blood, the factories where souls are crushed for profit, the slums where hunger sleeps beside despair. He means the torment that arises when love is silenced by ambition, when faith is replaced by ideology, when the few grow fat while the many starve. In every century, in every empire, this hell takes new forms — yet its essence is always the same: the suffering born from humanity’s failure to love.

Look, then, upon the history of modern nations. What do we see? The Industrial Revolution, that mighty wave of progress, lifted millions from poverty but enslaved countless others to machines. The rise of democracy promised equality, yet often delivered corruption and greed. The march of empire carried civilization to new lands but left behind ashes and chains. And in the twentieth century — that age of science and enlightenment — the world witnessed the Holocaust, the gulags, the atomic fire over Hiroshima. In all these, the promise of paradise became the construction of hell. Merton saw this contradiction and named it: the soul of modern history is divided between creation and destruction, between light and shadow.

Consider the trenches of World War I, where men lived and died in mud, their faces pale ghosts amid the smoke. They were told they fought for honor, for king and country, for the defense of civilization. Yet what they saw was slaughter — millions lost, generations broken. Out of that hell rose another war, darker still, where ideology became a god and men became its sacrifices. This, Merton would say, is the study of hell: not as a place of fire, but as the condition of a world that forgets mercy. The political and social history of mankind is written not only in the ink of law and progress, but in the blood of the innocent.

And yet, there is another meaning — for in speaking of hell, Merton also calls us to awareness. To see hell is not to despair, but to awaken. The one who sees suffering clearly can no longer pretend to be blind. The study of hell is the beginning of repentance, and repentance is the beginning of renewal. For only when nations confront the darkness within themselves can they begin to seek the light. It is through such awareness that humanity may yet be redeemed — not through denial of its sins, but through the courage to face them.

This truth can be seen in the story of Germany after World War II. A nation that once followed tyranny into abyss turned to face its own crimes. Through remembrance, through rebuilding, through the pursuit of justice, it sought to rise from its self-made inferno. It did not erase the past but bore it as a warning to all who would forget. Thus, the study of hell became the study of humility — and out of that humility, peace was reborn. So too must every nation, every generation, look honestly upon its shadows if it wishes to walk in light.

Let this be your lesson, then: do not turn away from suffering, and do not believe that history is a tale of unbroken progress. Read the chronicles of the world with open eyes and a tender heart. Recognize the hells that greed and hatred still build in our own time — the wars, the injustices, the divisions. Refuse to accept them as normal. Merton’s wisdom calls each of us to be both witness and healer, to bring compassion into a world that too easily forgets it.

For the study of hell is not meant to leave us in despair, but to arm us with conscience. It teaches us that every act of cruelty is a failure of memory, and every act of love is a triumph over history’s darkness. So study hell — not to dwell within it, but to ensure it is not built again. Only then can the history of nations, and of humankind, become not a descent into fire, but a rising toward light.