2. Who was von Ranke?
1795-1886 AD
German (Thuringia)
„No Attachment to Prussia‟ – Saxony annexed by
Prussia in 1815. (Iggers and Moltke)
Studied at Leipzig – Theology and Philology
(study of Language) – didn‟t complete
Theological studies
Conservative Lutheran – influence in history.
3. Wie es eigentlich gewesen
• “How, essentially, things happened.
• Ranke was committed to the strict presentation
of facts. Fact was king and historical truth was to
be displayed through this means.
• Ranke demands objectivity from the
historian, ensuring he is seen as the first
„professional‟ or „scientific‟ historian
4. Features of his Work
reliance on What
primary actually
sources happened
emphasis on Detailed sources
narrative history
especially international politics
5. Thematic
Focus?
• Ranke did not believe general
theories could cut across time and
space. Instead, only primary
sources tell us what happened
• "My understanding of 'leading
ideas' is simply that they are the
dominant tendencies in each
century. These
tendencies, however, can only be
described; they cannot, in the last
resort, be summed up in a concept."
• He had no interest in learning the
laws which govern history
• – empiricism over philosophy
• empiricism: “all human knowledge
ultimately comes from the senses
and from experience”
6. Dealing with The Past
"But it is not for the past as a part of the present, but for the past as the
past, that man is properly concerned" (Diaries, 1814)
"History has had assigned to it the office of judging the past and of
instructing the present for the benefit of future ages. To such high offices
the present work does not presume; it seeks only to show the past as it
really was" (History of the Latin and German Peoples, 1824)
"I would maintain, on the contrary, that every epoch is immediate to
God, and that its value in no way depends on what may have
eventuated from it, but rather in its existence alone, its own unique
particularity" (Lectures to King Maximilian of Bavaria, 1854)
7. Courage
"To accomplish anything in history there
are three requirements: a sound
understanding of people, courage, and
honesty. The first, simply for insight into
things; the second, not to be shocked at
what one finds there; and the third, not to
dissemble in any particular, even to
oneself. So do the simplest moral qualities
govern, even in science" (Diaries, c1843)
8. Primary Sources
"I see the time coming when we will
base modern history no longer on
secondhand reports, or even on
contemporary historians, save where
they had direct knowledge, and still
less on works yet more distant from
the period; but rather on eyewitness
accounts and on the most genuine,
the most immediate, sources" (History
of Germany in the Reformation, 1839)
9. God and History
"I would maintain, on the contrary, that every
epoch is immediate to God, and that its value in
no way depends on what may have eventuated
from it, but rather in its existence alone, its own
unique particularity" (Lectures to King Maximilian
of Bavaria, 1854)
