Table of Contents

Foreword, "All You've Got Is History," by Michael S. Roth
Preface to the Fortieth-Anniversary Edition
Preface
Introduction. The Poetics of History
Part One: The Received Tradition
1. The Historical Imagination between Metaphor and Irony
2. Hegel
Part Two: Four Kinds of "Realism" in Nineteenth-Century Historical Writing
3. Michelet
4. Ranke
5. Tocqueville
6. Burckhardt
Part Three: The Repudiation of "Realism" in Late Nineteenth-Century Philosophy of History
7. Historical Consciousness and the Rebirth of Philosophy of History
8. Marx
9. Nietzsche
10. Croce
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Promotional Information

This penetrating analysis of eight classic nineteenth-century thinkers explains how historians use literary techniques to write sophisticated historical works.

About the Author

Hayden White is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, professor emeritus of comparative literature at Stanford University, and professor emeritus of the history of consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the author of a number of books published by Johns Hopkins, including Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation, and Figural Realism: Studies in the Mimesis Effect.

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