A Companion to Western Historical Thought (eBook)

Lloyd Kramer is Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His previous publications include Threshold of a New World: Intellectuals and the Exile Experience in Paris, 1830-1848 (1988), Lafayette in Two Worlds: Public Cultures and Personal Identities in an Age of Revolutions (1996), and Nationalism: Political Cultures in Europe and America, 1775-1865 (1998). Sarah Maza is Jane Long Professor of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She is the author of Servants and Masters in Eighteenth-century France (1983) and Private Lives and Public Affairs: The Causes Célèbres of Pre-Revolutionary France (1993).

List of Contributors viii

Acknowledgments xii

Introduction: The Cultural History of Historical Thought
Lloyd Kramer and Sarah Maza 1

Part I The Pre-modern Origins of Western Historical Thought

1 Historiography in Ancient Israel
John Van Seters 15

2 Historical Thought in Ancient Greece
Philip A. Stadter 35

3 Historical Thought in Ancient Rome
J. E. Lendon 60

4 Historical Thought in Medieval Europe
Gabrielle M. Spiegel 78

5 Historical Thought in the Renaissance
Paula Findlen 99

Part II The Shaping of Modern Western Historical Thought

6 Historical Thought in the Era of the Enlightenment
Johnson Kent Wright 123

7 German Historical Thought in the Age of Herder, Kant, and Hegel
Harold Mah 143

8 German Historical Writing from Ranke to Weber: The Primacy of Politics
Harry Liebersohn 166

9 National History in the Age of Michelet, Macaulay, and Bancroft
Thomas N. Baker 185

10 Marxism and Historical Thought
Walter L. Adamson 205

Part III Patterns in Twentieth-century Western Historical Thought

11 The Professionalization of Historical Studies and the Guiding Assumptions of Modern Historical Thought
Georg G. Iggers 225

12 The History of Armed Power
Peter Paret 243

13 Total History and Microhistory: The French and Italian Paradigms
David A. Bell 262

14 Anthropology and the History of Culture
William M. Reddy 277

15 The History of Science, Or, an Oxymoronic Theory of Relativistic Objectivity
Ken Alder 297

16 Language, Literary Studies, and Historical Thought
Susan A. Crane 319

17 Psychology, Psychoanalysis, and Historical Thought
Lynn Hunt 337

18 Redefining Historical Identities: Sexuality, Gender, and the Self
Carolyn J. Dean 357

19 Historicizing Natural Environments: The Deep Roots of Environmental History
Andrew C. Isenberg 372

Part IV Challenges to the Boundaries of Western Historical Thought

20 The New World History
Jerry H. Bentley 393

21 Postcolonial History
Prasenjit Duara 417

22 The Multicultural History of Nations
Donna R. Gabaccia 432

23 New Technologies and Historical Knowledge
James M. Murray 447

24 The Visual Media and Historical Knowledge
Robert A. Rosenstone 466

Consolidated Bibliography 482

Index 495

"This companion is expansive in its subject and links with other disciplines, such as ancient history and the classics, anthropology, Biblical studies and theology... It covers many expected subjects, but also explores lesser-known areas of historical interest as well as the challenges to historical thought in the twenty-first century that will continue to make this companion a useful library resource." Reference Reviews