The authors discuss the history and current orientation of intellectual history, the history of ideas, and related fields, primarily focusing on the USA. Two past phases are identified: an early phase, ca. 1940 to the 1960s, which emphasised the analysis of past ‘articulate ideas’, or theories, with varying degrees of contextualisation, and a reorientation in the 1970s–1980s toward a focus on ‘culture’, ‘meaning’, and ‘discourse’, accompanied by a reaction within the historical discipline against the study of what many regarded as elite discourses. More recently, the analysis of past ‘articulate’ thought has returned, but with a greater emphasis on current implications.