Abstract
In this essay I argue that in a world by now thoroughly historicized, 'historical knowledge' claims to authority and legitimacy are predicated, ironically, on the notion of redundancy. By redundancy, I mean here that the whole semantic field of history (of history culture) now comprises superfluous production leading to irrelevance (the amplification, atomization, ephemeralization of knowledge generating tautologies, solipsisms, obsolescence, and uselessness); the essay concludes that history thus projects the aura of a finished world.