What Is History For Johann Gustav Droysen and the Functions of Historiography [Paperback]

A scholar of Hellenistic and Prussian history, Droysen developed a historical theory that at the time was unprecedented in range and depth, and which remains to the present day a valuable key for understanding history as both an idea and a professional practice. Arthur Alfaix Assis interprets Droysens theoretical project as an attempt to redefine the function of historiography within the context of a rising criticism of exemplar theories of history, and focuses on Droysens claim that the goal underlying historical writing and reading should be the development of the subjective capacity to think historically. In addition, Assis examines the connections and disconnections between Droysens theory of historical thinking, his practice of historical thought, and his political activism. Ultimately, Assis not only shows how Droysen helped reinvent the relationship between historical knowledge and human agency, but also traces some of the contradictions and limitations inherent to that project.

Arthur Alfaix Assisis Assistant Professor of the Theory and Methodology of History at the University of Brasília.

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1.Functions of Historiography until the Mid-Nineteenth Century: A Short History of the Problem
Chapter 2.The Theoretical Design of a New Justification
Chapter 3.Historical Thinking and the Genealogy of the Present
Chapter 4.The Politics of Historical Thinking and the Limits of the New Function

Concluding Remarks

Appendix:Droysen and his Theory of History

Bibliography

Assis offers the reader a wide panorama of German historiography during the nineteenth century, centering on the debates about historicism, a dominant paradigm for German historical knowledge in the nineteenth century, and in the reformulation of pragmatic vallÃ