I read this in an alumni course as part of the Basic Program of Liberal Education at the University of Chicago. In the introduction to his lectures, Hegel lays down the principles and aims which underlie his philosophy of history, and provides an outline of the philosophy of history itself. he discusses what it means to say "reason governs history". And he discusses the idea of freedom in both the political sense and the individual's self-knowledge. He deals with the importance (for him and his philosophy) of religion and comments that "the task of philosophical world history is to discover the continuity within this movement."(p 56)
The comprehensive and voluminous survey of world history which followed the introduction in the original lectures is of less interest to students of Hegel's thought than the introduction, and is therefore not included in this volume. Nevertheless this is a worthwhile test to begin a study of Hegel's approach and note the impact he has had on subsequent philosophical thought. ( )

There is at least here an interesting perspective on history as being the universal, common trend of spirit within a culture. The words -- freedom, reason, thought, spirit, and history -- are sprinkled generously throughout this work. As with Kant, they are all used as proper nouns with a full meaning, different from common usage and not well-explained. There is a great example of the progression of freedom from the oriental cultures, to the Greek cultures (where it meant not slave), to the German culture which was at a higher level due to the spiritual freedom of Christianity. This led to a parallel freedom within government and law. It's very intesting to see the commonality of certain words and phrases, such as "brute" used similarly by Rand, Descartes, Hegel, and Hobbes. P553: "The History of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom; a progress whose development according to the necessity of its nature it is our business to investigate." History is also shown to be the "slaughter-bench" at which are the victims happiness of people, wisdom of States, and virtue of individuals. Examples include great leaders, such as Caesar, Alexander, and Napoleon. P576: "It is only by a Constitution that the abstraction -- the State -- attains a life and reality; but this involves the distinction between those who command and those who obey." This is later described as a great ruse to the simultaneous conflict and overlap between these two groups. P601: "History in general is therefore the development of Spirit in Time, as Nature is the development of Idea in Space." ( )