In these fifteen essays, one Of Germany's most distinguished philosophers of history invokes an extraordinary array of witnesses and texts to explore the concept of historical time. The witnesses include politicians, philosophers, theologians, and poets, and the texts range from Renaissance paintings to the dreams of German citizens in the 1930s. Using these remarkable materials, Koselleck investigates the relationship of history to language, and of language to the deeper movements of human understanding.Reinhart Koselleck is Professor of the Theory of History (...) at the University of Bielefeld. (shrink)

In this way progressive bourgeois philosophy, which seemed to offer the promise of a unified and peaceful world, in fact produced just the opposite.The book ...

Reinhart Koselleck is among the most original German theorists of history and historiography. His international reputation is due in part to his contributions as theorist and editor of the remarkable lexicon Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe (GG). The GG is an exceptional reference work that goes far towards realizing Koselleck's program and distinctive version of Begriffsgeschichte (the history of concepts, conceptual history). What is presented here is a translation in full of Koselleck's own entry on Krise (crisis). Few articles in the GG demonstrate (...) more successfully Koselleck's theoretical concerns, his method, and innovative use of sources. (shrink)

Les essais réunis dans Le futur passé proposent des réflexions précieuses et peut-être plus libres que celles d'autres ouvrages de Koselleck, tout du moins en ce qui concerne trois sujets : l'histoire conceptuelle, la théorie de la modernité et la théorie des temps historiques. " Les analyses sémantiques présentées ici ne portent pas essentiellement sur l'histoire de la langue ", précise l'auteur. " Elles s'attachent à la structure linguistique des expériences temporelles, là où celles-ci sont ancrées dans la réalité passée. (...) Ces analyses s'élargissent au champ social et linguistique, tout en essayant de passer de la sémantique des concepts à la dimension historique et anthropologique inhérente à tout acte de langage. " Le livre que l'on présente aujourd'hui est déjà reconnu comme un texte de référence par la communauté internationale des philosophes comme des historiens. (shrink)

The bells tolling on 9 May 1945 were heralding peace. The question remained: what kind of peace and for whom? Thousands of us marched on a trail for many kilometers, from Mährish-Ostrau eastward, like a silent accordion, sometimes extended, sometimes compressed, chased, not knowing where we were going. The voices of the bells echoed over our column and raised hopes from whose nonfulfillment countless people would perish, not being able to bear the disappointments of the new forthcoming peace. However, it (...) was all unknown to us, we did not even know where we were going. Yet we knew where we were coming from, from the cauldron that had continuously tightened over four weeks, and from which we had definitely failed to escape on 1 May. With a wounded soldier on my back, I laid down my gun. At that point, we didn’t know yet that the Americans would hand all the prisoners that had reached the redemptive West from Bohemia and Moravia back to the Russians. So this fight had been futile and every death in vain. The dead were still lying around in countless numbers. (shrink)

Sediments of time -- Fiction and historical reality -- Space and history -- Historik and hermeneutics -- Goethe's untimely history -- Does history accelerate? -- Constancy and change of all contemporary histories -- History, law, and justice -- Linguistic change and the history of events -- Structures of repetition in language and history -- On the meaning and absurdity in history -- Concepts of the enemy -- Sluices of memory and sediments of experiences -- Behind the deadly line : the (...) age of totality -- Forms and traditions of negative memory -- Histories in the plural and the theory of history : an interview with Carsten Dutt. (shrink)