Abstract
Critically reviews a number of books and essays that have appeared in recent years in Germany, Italy, and the United States on the topic of historicism. One surprise is that there is no consensus on the meaning of the word. Some scholars focus on the so-called "crisis of historicism" in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their concern is the spread of relativism and the accompanying threat to Western values. Others see historicism as the historiographical perspective and practices that took hold in the 19th century. Finally, there is the "New Historicism" of certain literary and cultural critics of the past two decades. The works under discussion deal with the first of these definitions. Further work is needed on historicist thinking in non-German-speaking nations. Also, the challenge of postmodernist ways of thought that attack historicism must be met.