Evidence and Meaning: A Theory of Historical Studies

Jörn Rüsen

Published by Berghahn Books 2017

Evidence and Meaning

A Theory of Historical Studies

Jörn Rüsen

Volume 28 in the series Making Sense of History

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781785335396

Overview
Contents

About this book

As one of the premier historical thinkers of his generation, Jörn Rüsen has made enormous contributions to the methods and theoretical framework of history as it is practiced today. In Evidence and Meaning, Rüsen surveys the seismic changes that have shaped the historical profession over the last half-century, while offering a clear, economical account of his theory of history. To traditional historiography Rüsen brings theoretical insights from philosophy, narrative theory, cultural studies, and the social sciences, developing an intricate but robust model of “historical thinking” as both a cognitive discipline and a cultural practice—one that is susceptible neither to naïve empiricism nor radical relativism.

Author / Editor information

Jörn Rüsen is Professor Emeritus of General History and Historical Culture at Witten/Herdecke University. He has also taught at the Universities of Berlin, Bochum and Bielefeld and was Director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Essen. His books and articles have been translated into twenty different languages. Dr. Rüsen is the Founding Editor of the Berghahn Books series Making Sense of History.

Reviews

“The English translation of Jörn Rüsen’s Historik is a major event in the global community of practitioners of the philosophy, methodology, logic or, broadly speaking, theory of history. Now ideas of universal value speak the universal koine…it is hard to find in all of academia a more suitable book for introducing in an orderly manner the metatheoretical results of 150 years of debates on the nature of history.” • Journal of the Philosophy of History

“This book is the late aggregate of numerous ground-breaking texts on the theory of history that Rüsen has published since the end of the 1960s. Rüsen has, in this book, pooled and consolidated many approaches to thinking about the theory of history… Reading and discussing Rüsen’s book… could be, for all history teacher students, one leg in their journeys to becoming routined teachers and something that they will gratefully remember after many years of professional practice.” • Public History Weekly

“Rüsen succeeds overall to fulfill the claim of a comprehensive fundamental synthesis. The openness and time-bound nature of a work should be understood as an invitation to develop further the theory of historiography. Rüsen himself has offered, and not only with this book, an important contribution.” • H-Soz-Kult

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Tables and Figures Publicly Available Download PDF	x
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
CHAPTER 1 What is Metahistory? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	7
CHAPTER 2 The Foundations of Historical Thinking Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
CHAPTER 3 History as Academic Discipline Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	32
CHAPTER 4 A Systematic Approach: Categories, Theories, Concepts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	67
CHAPTER 5 Methodology: The Rules of the Historical Method Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	125
CHAPTER 6 Topics: How We Write History Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
CHAPTER 7 The Basis of Historical Culture Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	168
CHAPTER 8 Practical History: Learning, Understanding, Humanity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
Final Reflections: Finding Reason between Meaning and Meaninglessness Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	216
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	243

Language: English
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 266
Keywords: surveys changes in historical profession; historiography; intricate model of historical thinking; cognitive discipline and cultural practice; narrative theory; social sciences; cultural studies; philosophy; naive empiricism nor radical relativism; clear and economical; history

eBook

Published: May 1, 2017
ISBN: 9781785335396