History: Narration, Interpretation, Orientation

Without denying the importance of the postmodernist approach to the narrative form and rhetorical strategies of historiography, the author, one of Germany's most prominent cultural historians, argues here in favor of reason and methodical rationality in history. He presents a broad variety of aspects, factors and developments of historical thinking from the 18th century to the present, thus continuing, in exemplary fashion, the tradition of critical self-reflection in the humanities and looking at historical studies as an important factor of cultural orientation in practical life.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures
Preface

Introduction: How to Understand Historical Thinking

PART I: NARRATION

Chapter 1. Historical Narration: Foundation, Types, Reason
Chapter 2. Narrative Competence: The Ontogeny of Historical and Moral Consciousness
Chapter 3. Rhetoric and Aesthetics of History: Leopold von Ranke
Chapter 4. Narrativity and Objectivity in Historical Studies

PART II: INTERPRETATION

Chapter 5. What is Historical Theory?
Chapter 6. New History: Paradigms of Interpretation
Chapter 7. Theoretical Approaches to an Intercultural Comparison of Historiography
Chapter 8. Loosening the Order of History: Modernity, Postmodernity, Memory

PART III: ORIENTATION

Chapter 9. Historical Thinking as Trauerarbeit: Burckhardt’s Answer to a Question of our Time
Chapter 10. Historizing Nazi-Time: Metahistorical Reflections on the Debate Between Friedländer and Broszat
Chapter 11. Holocaust-Memory and German Identity

Bibliography
Index