Access Type
Online access to this book is only available to eligible users.
Files
Download Full Text (16.5 MB)
Description
The Prussian School of History first predicted and advocated, then celebrated and defended, the unification of Germany by Prussia. Experts in German historiography and the history of German liberalism have often complained about the lack of a book, in any language, that traces the origins and explains the ideas of this school of history. Here is that book.
Robert Southard finds that, for the Prussian School, history had an agenda. These historians generally expected history to complete its main tasks in their own time and country. The outcome of their politics was, really, an "end of history"—not a cessation to historical occurrences, but a cessation of onward historical movement because the historical process had already achieved its long-term, beneficent purposes.
Leading us through the intricacies of important but untranslated works of J. G. Droysen, Max Duncker, Rudolph Hayn, and Heinrich von Sybel, Southard demonstrates their belief that the historical sequence was a continual unfolding of God's plan. Indispensable for those interested in the history of German historical writing, this book also has major implications for understanding the history of political liberalism.
Robert Southard (1945–2007) was professor of history at Earlham College.
"Illustrates well the links between historiography and the key issue of 19th-century German history—the reconstitution of a unified German state."—Choice
Publication Date
1995
Publisher
The University Press of Kentucky
Place of Publication
Lexington, KY
ISBN
9780813118840
eISBN
9780813149738
Keywords
Droysen, Prussian School, Historiography, German unification
Disciplines
European History
Recommended Citation
Southard, Robert, "Droysen and the Prussian School of History" (1995). European History. 8.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_european_history/8
Consortium members may access while on their campus.
