Zeitwende. Geschichtsdenken heute

Abstract

Dieter Langewiesche's studies of liberalism, nationalism and the nineteenth-century Bürgertum have been essential reading for more than thirty years and have helped establish the current framework for research in these areas. In 1996 his exceptional contributions were recognized with the award of the Leibniz-Preis of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. This collection of occasional writings, edited by Nikolaus Buschmann and Ute Planert, shows Langewiesche also to be an outstanding essayist, always concerned to bring his profound historical knowledge to bear on contemporary problems and current discussions. As an introductory piece on ‘Geschichtsschreibung und Geschichtsmarkt’ makes clear, Langewiesche is deeply concerned with the relationship between professional historians and the popular market for history. That relationship is itself subject to historical change and Langewiesche suggests that in the early twenty-first century German historians are faced with the need to develop a new set of coordinates and a new sense of mission. For many decades after 1945 their main task was to define the place of National Socialism in German history in order to provide orientation for a society making its way out of disaster. Now, he suggests, they need to develop a new social role in a Europeanized and globalized framework by developing ‘transnational’ perspectives in place of the old national categories.