ABSTRACT

This Companion provides a wide-ranging and up-to-date overview of the conceptual issues that history as a discipline and mode of thought gives rise to.

The book offers both historical and systematic treatments of these issues, as well as addressing their contemporary relevance. Structured in three parts – Modes and Schools of Historical Thought, Epistemology and Metaphysics of History, and Issues and Challenges in Historical Theory – it offers the reader a wide scope and expert treatment of each topic in this vibrant field that can be read in any order. An international team of experts both discuss the basis of their topic and present their own view, offering the reader a cutting-edge contribution while ensuring their chapters are of interest to both students and specialists in the field of historical theory and engaging with the very nature of historical thought, the metaphysics of historical existence, the politics of history-writing, and the intelligibility of the historical process.

The volume is an indispensable companion to the study of history and essential reading for anyone interested in the reflection on the nature of history and our historical existence.

part I|196 pages

Modes and schools of historical thought

chapter 1|14 pages

Historicism

chapter 2|17 pages

Hermeneutics

chapter 3|16 pages

Marxism

chapter 4|18 pages

Idealism

chapter 5|15 pages

Positivism

chapter 6|15 pages

Phenomenology

chapter 7|15 pages

Critical theory

chapter 8|16 pages

Narrativism *

chapter 9|18 pages

Pragmatism

chapter 10|16 pages

Analytical philosophy of history

chapter 11|16 pages

Postcolonial theory

chapter 12|18 pages

Psychoanalysis

part II|198 pages

Epistemology and metaphysics of history

chapter 15|21 pages

Objectivity and relativism

chapter 16|15 pages

Constructivism and realism

chapter 17|16 pages

Explanation

chapter 18|14 pages

Interpretation

chapter 19|17 pages

Representation

chapter 20|16 pages

Truth

chapter 21|15 pages

Postmodernism

“The Crisis of Narratives” and the Historical Discipline

chapter 22|17 pages

Ethics

Or sharing history

chapter 24|15 pages

Freedom and agency

part III|208 pages

Issues and challenges in historical theory

chapter 25|17 pages

Political ideologies

chapter 26|16 pages

Didactics

chapter 27|16 pages

Big data

chapter 28|16 pages

New television and film

chapter 29|19 pages

Counterfactuals

chapter 30|17 pages

Globalization/s

chapter 31|17 pages

Teleology

chapter 32|14 pages

The sublime

chapter 33|15 pages

Experience

chapter 34|14 pages

Memory

chapter 35|15 pages

Time

chapter 36|14 pages

Presence

chapter 37|16 pages

The end of history