Populare Geschichtsschreibung. Historiker, Verleger und die deutsche Offentlichkeit (1848-1900)

Abstract

While the history of historiography is a well-established field in German history-writing, it has concentrated almost exclusively on professional historians and their work. Hence, little is in fact known about popular forms of history-writing. The current volume is therefore an extremely welcome addition to the increasing body of work dealing with a wider historical culture in Germany. Originating in a doctoral dissertation at the Humboldt University in Berlin, the book under review asks what was special or different about popular forms of history-writing when compared to professional history-writing. It demonstrates that up until the 1880s professional history remained by and large popular in the sense that the works by professional historians were widely celebrated and received among the German middle-class public. Professional historians saw themselves as national pedagogues, which fostered a sense among them that they should cater not only for the interests of their fellow historians but also for the education of a wider public. And yet, from about the last third of the nineteenth century there emerged a greater need for popular accounts of history, as professional historical research became too specialized and was increasingly difficult to bring to an educated public unmediated. Its loss of popular appeal around 1900 coincided with the rise of other disciplines, such as psychology, sociology and national economics, which seemed to provide greater orientation knowledge for the present than history.