is the absolute end of history, just as Asia is the beginning." When referring to the east, Hegel generally has in mind the historical cultures of Persia, though at times he does reference China and spends a great deal of space discussing India and Indian religions. However he also said that the view of history (including his own) should be open to change based on the 'empirical facts' available. The text German editions Because of the nature of the text (collections of edited lecture notes), critical editions were slow in forthcoming. The standard German edition for many years was the manuscript of Hegel's son Karl Hegel, published in 1840. The German edition produced by Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Michel (1986) essentially follows Karl Hegel's edition. The only critical edition in German of the text of the lectures is Georg Lasson's 4 vol. edition (1917–1920). This edition was published repeatedly (last in two volumes in 1980) by Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg. The long introduction was re-edited on the basis of Lasson's publication in 1955, by Johannes Hoffmeister. English editions No full English translation of the complete lectures has ever been produced. The first English translation was made from Karl Hegel's edition, which lacked much material discovered later. This translation, made by John Sibree (1857), is still the only English version which contains not only the Introduction, but the shorter body of the lectures according to Karl Hegel's 1840 manuscript. Though it is incomplete, this translation is often used by English speaking scholars and is prevalent in university classrooms in the English-speaking world. An English translation of the Introduction to the lectures was produced by Robert S. Hartman (1953) which included an introduction and additional editorial footnotes. Hartman produced this translation before Hoffmeister's critical edition was published, and it is quite short, only 95 pages. An English translation of Hoffmeister's critical edition of the Introduction was produced in 1974 by H. B. Nisbet. This edition presents the full text of the Introduction to Karl Hegel manuscript, as well as all later additions included in the Hoffmeister edition of the Introduction. As such, it is the only critical edition of any portion of the lectures available in English. No translation of the full edition of the lectures following Lasson has yet been produced. A new translation of the entirety of the Vorlesungen was published in 2011, translated by Ruben Alverado, based on the