All writers and thinkers, and their works, are in a tradition that preceded them. In The Tree of Tradition, Nicholas Hagger sets out a way for all writers and thinkers to be more aware of the traditions and influences that have shaped their works in all subjects and disciplines in all civilisations, using short personal reflections on how influences shaped his own works as an example. Each discipline has metaphysical and secular traditions, and Hagger’s A New Philosophy of Literature set out the fundamental theme of world literature as a perennial conflict between a Romantic individual quest for Reality, the One, and a classical condemnation of social follies and vices. Hagger’s 60 Universalist works are innovatory in seeing the ultimate unity of the universe, of all disciplines and of humankind, and in reconciling Romanticism and Classicism within a unity he calls Baroque.

A Universalist writer is influenced by many sub-traditions, and Hagger particularises the traditions and sub-traditions that have inspired or influenced his works in seven disciplines (mysticism, literature, philosophy and the sciences, history, comparative religion, international politics and statecraft, and world culture) and in the seven branches of literature in which he has written his works (poems and poetic epics, verse plays and masques, short stories, diaries, autobiographies, letters and his statement of the fundamental unity of world literature), which he symbolises in a stag’s two seven-branched antlers. This is an inspirational book that throws light on the traditions and influences behind all works in all disciplines and civilisations, and the 109 traditions and 84 influences behind Hagger’s Universalist works.