In four impressively researched essays Georg Iggers recounts the transformation of historical studies in Europe during the twentieth century, with particular emphasis on the historiography of the past fifteen years. Although the book does survey a broad area of contemporary historical thought, it is primarily a careful analytical examination of the methodological and theoretical reorientation of certain influential European historians.

The first essay discusses the emergence at German Universities during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of the concept of history as a scientific...