History in the Plural

This is the first intellectual biography, in any language, on post-war Germany’s greatest theorist of history, Reinhart Koselleck. It not only illuminates Koselleck’s role in founding conceptual history, but also introduces his important accounts of historical time, of historical anthropology, and of political iconology. Both students of post-war German intellectual history and, broadly speaking, of philosophies of history will find this an immensely rich and stimulating volume. Jan-Werner Müller, Professor of Politics and Founding Director, Project in the History of Political Thought, Princeton UniversityThis is a very thorough and, at the same time, original take on Reinhard Koselleck’s work...As the major representative of German Begriffsgeschichte, he deserves to be better known in the English-speaking world, and this volume will go a long way to achieve this aim...It is an excellent contribution to historical theory and the history of historiography. Stefan Berger, University of Manchester...an impressive book, especially in the way in which the author succeeds in integrating biographical, historical, and philosophical elements in an elegant and lucid way-something achieved by only the best introductions to Western thinkers and intellectuals. Helge Jordheim, University of OsloReinhart Koselleck (1923-2006) was one of most imposing and influential European intellectual historians in the twentieth century. Constantly probing and transgressing the boundaries of mainstream historical writing, he created numerous highly innovative approaches, absorbing influences from other academic disciplines as represented in the work of philosophers and political thinkers like Hans Georg Gadamer and Carl Schmitt and that of internationally renowned scholars such as Hayden White, Michel Foucault, and Quentin Skinner. An advocate of 'grand theory,' Koselleck was an inspiration to many scholars and helped move the discipline into new directions (such as conceptual history, theories of historical times and memory) and across disciplinary and national boundaries. He thus achieved a degree of international fame that was unusual for a German historian after 1945. This book not only presents the life and work of a 'great thinker' and European intellectual, it also contributes to our understanding of complex theoretical and methodological issues in the cultural sciences and to our knowledge of the history of political, historical, and cultural thought in Germany from the 1950s to the present.Niklas Olsen received his PhD in History from the European University Institute in Florence. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Copenhagen working on a project on the variants of liberalism in Denmark and Western Europe, 1945-1990.