The Idea of History
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
The Idea of History
| Author | R.G. Collingwood |
|---|---|
| Published | 1946 |
| Pages | 339 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | R.G. Collingwood’s posthumous book on what historical knowledge actually is: a history of historical thinking from the Greeks to the nineteenth century, then his own argument that history is not a natural science observing events from outside but the re-enactment of past thought in the historian’s mind. The standard entry point to twentieth-century philosophy of history in English. |
The Idea of History
Where I heard about it
- University of Austin — assigned in History, Historiography, and the Philosophy of History on its Fall 2025 reading list (November 2025), paired with Nietzsche’s Genealogy and Eliade’s Myth of the Eternal Return, which read as rival answers to the question Collingwood poses most explicitly. Full curriculum: UATX Fall Reading List.
About this edition
Assembled from Collingwood’s manuscripts and lectures by T.M. Knox after his death in 1943, and published by Oxford in 1946.
Connections
- UATX Fall Reading List — the curriculum this is assigned in.
- History — the subject, taken as an epistemological problem rather than a set of facts.
- Myth of the Eternal Return · On the Genealogy of Morals — the other two texts assigned in the same course.
- The Lessons of History · On the Use and Abuse of History for Life — other books in the anti-library arguing about what history is for.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.