The Role of the Individual in History: Biographical and Historical Writing in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century

Abstract

This chapter examines two key moments of the battle over the border between history and biography. The first dates to the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries and is especially linked to the impact and success of philosophical history. The second crucial turning point in the widening of the divide between history and biography dates to the end of the nineteenth century. In the nineteenth century, many historians joined this new battle against biography in the name of science. The dream of writing impersonal history also seduced some German historians. As the German historian Eberhard Gothein wrote ironically, the actions of great importance, State facts, are the prerogative of political historians, while cultural historians confined themselves to the rubbish bin and the 'wardrobe of old things'. During the twentieth century, the image of biographical history was further damaged. Keywords: biographical history; cultural historians; Eberhard Gothein; nineteenth century; philosophical history; political historians; twentieth century