ABSTRACT
The state of historical scholarship is not only influenced by problems connected with the outbreak and the results of World War II; the most decisive challenge has been brought about by the scientific and technical discoveries and changes that have taken place in the last decades. The new factors arising from World War II and its aftermath have influenced the development of historical scholarship in different ways. A great parr of historical work seems to assume the character of an auxiliary science that serves politics by explaining the background of present-day issues. The Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici in Naples, which Croce founded and Chabod directed was conceived as a postgraduate school. The intellectual and institutional bonds which merged through the professionalization of history seem to be dissolved. For the existence of history as a profession and as an independent field depends on the conception of the past as a totality.
