ABSTRACT
The field of history as a whole has been increasingly scrutinized by a number of theorists in recent years: in the apt phrasing of H.V. White,
Continental European thinkers-from Valéry and Heidegger to Sartre, Lévi-Strauss, and Michel Foucault-have cast serious doubts on the value of a specifically ‘historical’ consciousness, stressed the fictive character of historical reconstructions, and challenged history’s claims to a place among the sciences.1
