Western Historical Thinking

What is history a question historians have been asking themselves time and again. Does "history" as an academic discipline, as it has evolved in the West over the centuries, represent a specific mode of historical thinking that can bedefined in contrast to other forms of historical consciousness? In this volume, Peter Burke, a prominent "Western" historian, offers ten hypotheses that attempt to constitute specifically "Western Historical Thinking." Scholars from Asia and Africa comment on his position in the light of their own ideas of the sense and meaning of historical thinking. The volume is rounded off by Peter Burke's comments on the questions and issues raised by the authors and his suggestions for the way forward towards a common ground for intercultural communication.

Jorn Rusen was Professor of Modern History at the Universities of Bochum and Bielefeld for many years. From 1994 to 1997 he was the Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF). Since 1997 he has been President of the Institute for Cultural Studies in Essen

Preface to the Series	p. vii
Introduction: Historical Thinking as Intercultural Discourse	p. 1
Theses
Western Historical Thinking in a Global Perspective - 10 Theses	p. 15
Comments
General Comments
Perspectives in Historical Anthropology	p. 33
Searching for Common Principles: A Plea and Some Remarks on the Islamic Tradition	p. 53
The Coherence of the West	p. 58
The Peculiarity of the West
Toward an Archaeology of Historical Thinking	p. 65
Trauma and Suffering: A Forgotten Source of Western Historical Consciousness	p. 72
Western Deep Culture and Western Historical Thinking	p. 85
What is Uniquely Western about the Historiography of the West in Contrast to that of China?	p. 101
The Westernization of World History	p. 111
The Perspective of the Others
Western Historical Thinking from an Arabian Perspective	p. 119
Cognitive Historiography and Normative Historiography	p. 128
Western Uniqueness? Some Counterarguments from an African Perspective	p. 142
Programs for Historians: A Western Perspective	p. 148
The Difference of the Others
Reflections on Chinese Historical Thinking	p. 152
Must History Follow Rational Patterns of Interpretation? Critical Questions from a Chinese Perspective	p. 173
Some Reflections on Early Indian Historical Thinking	p. 178
Afterword
Reply	p. 189
Notes on Contributors	p. 199
Index	p. 203
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Western Historical Thinking

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