The Varieties of History

This is a book by historians about history, personal reflections on an ancient but ever varying discipline. As the present work will show, modern historians have written in a variety of genres, but the multiplicity of style cannot obscure the two basic tendencies which have affected all modern historians: the transformation of history into an academic discipline and society's growing demand for history.

A recognized authority on modern Europe, Fritz Stern (1938–2016) was a Seth Low Professor of History and former provost at Columbia University. He held three degrees from Columbia, where he taught for over four decades. He also taught at Cornell, Yale, the Free University of Berlin, and the University of Konstanz in West Germany, and as Élie Halévy Professor at the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques in Paris. He received a DLitt from Oxford in 1985 and the Leopold-Lucas Prize from the Evangelical-Theological Faculty of the University of Tübingen in 1984. His works include The Varieties of History: From Voltaire to the Present; Dreams and Delusions: National Socialism in the Drama of the German Past; Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichröder, and the Building of the German Empire, which was nominated for a National Book Award; The Politics of Cultural Despair; and The Failure of Illiberalism.

1. THE NEW PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY: Voltaire
On History: Advice to a Journalist
Letter to Abbe Dubos
Introduction: The Age of Louis XIV
On the Usefulness of History
 
2. THE CRITICAL MEHTOD: Barthold Niebuhr
Preface to the First Edition: History of Rome
Preface to the Second Edition: History of Rome
 
3. THE IDEAL OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY: Leopold von Ranke
Preface: Histories of Romance and Germanic Peoples
Fragment from the 1830’s
Fragment from the 1860’s
 
4. NATIONAL HISTORY AND LIBERALISM: Augustin Thierry
Preface and Letter I: The History of France
 
5. HISTORY AND LITERATURE: Thomas Babington Macaulay
History
 
6. HISTORY AS BIOGRAPHY: Thomas Carlyle
On History
From On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History
 
7. HISTORY AS A NATIONAL EPIC: Jules Michelet
From the Introduction: The People
 
8. POSITIVISTIC HISTORY AND ITS CRITCS: Henry Thomas Buckle and Johann Droysen
Buckle: From General Introduction, History of Civilization in England
Droysen: Art and Method
 
9. HISTORICAL MATERIALISM: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; Jean Jaures
Marx and Engels: From The German Idealogy
Jaures: Critical and General Introduction: Histoire socialiste de la Revolution francaise
 
10. HISTORY AS AN ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE:
Prospectuses of Historische Zeitscrift, Revue Historique, English Historical Review
 
11. THE ETHOS OF A SCIENTIFIC HISTORIAN: N. D. Fustel de Coulanges
An Inaugural Lecture
Introduction to The History of Political Institutions of Ancient France
 
12. ON THE TRAINING OF HISTORIANS: Theodor Mommsen
Rectorial Address
 
13. AN AMERICAN DEFINITION OF HISTORY: Frederick Jackson Turner
The Significance of History
 
14. HISTORY AS A SCIENCE: J. B. Bury
Inaugural Address: The Science of History
 
Part II
 
1. CLIO REDISCOVERED: G. M. Trevelyan
From Clio, A Muse
 
2. SPECIALIZATION AND HISTORICAL SYNTHESIS: Lord Acton and Henry Berr
Acton: Letter to the Contributors to the Cambridge Modern History
Berr: About Our Program
 
3. A “NEW HISTORY” IN AMERICA: James Harvey Robinson and Charles A. Beard
Robinson and Beard: Preface: The Development of Modern Europe
Robinson: From The New History
 
4. HISTORICISM AND ITS PROBLEMS: Friedrich Meinecke
Values and Causalities in History
 
5. HISTORICAL CONCEPTUALIZATION: J. Huizinga
The Idea of History
 
6. ECONOMIC HISTORY: George Unwin and J. H. Clapham
Unwin: The Teaching of Economic History in University Tutorial Classes
Clapham: Economic History As a Discipline
 
7. HISTORICAL RELATIVISM: Charles A. Beard
That Noble Dream
 
8. HISTORY UNDER MORDERN DICTATORSHIPS: N. N. Pokrovsky, Walter Frank, and K. A. von Muller
Povrovsky: The Tasks of the Society of Marxist Historians
The Tasks of Marxist Historical Science in the Reconstruction Period
Frank: From Guild and Nation
Von Muller: Editor’s Note to the Historische Zeitschrift
 
9. HISTORY AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES: Thomas Cochran and Richard Hofstadter
Cochran: The Social Sciences and the Problem of Historical Synthesis
Hofstadter: History and the Social Sciences
 
10. HISTORY AND POLITICAL CULTURE: L. B. Namier
History
Human Nature in Politics
 
11. CULTURAL HISTORY AS A SYNTHESIS: Jacques Brown
Cultural History: A Synthesis
 
12. TIME, HISTORY, AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES: Fernand Braudel
History and the Social Sciences: The Long Term
 
13. SOCIAL HISTORY: H. J. Perkin
Social History
 
14. A NEW ECONOMIC HISTORY: R. W. Fogel
the new Economic History: Its Findings and Methods
 
15. CLIO AND CRISIS: C. Vann Woodward
Clio with Soul