The History of the Concept of Herrschaft in the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe

Abstract

Abstract Begriffsgeschichte in the form given it by the GG will now be considered not as a set of programmatic statements but on the basis of actual performance. The qualities which recommend this lexicon are not easily conveyed to those who have not as yet used it. Yet without some knowledge of what the GG contains, it is impossible to form even a preliminary judgment about the value of either its method or findings. Rather than summarizing or describing a number of articles, I have chosen to present a detailed exposition of the long contribution on Herrschaft (“dominion,” “domination,” “lordship,” “rule,” “command”) written by a team headed by Reinhart Koselleck. Be cause this concept has figured so prominently in the vocabularies of social scientists, historians, and political philosophers in the English-speaking world since 1945, readers will be in a position to judge for themselves just what the GG might add to what they already know.