History and Causality [Hardcover]

This volume investigates the different attitudes of historians and other social scientists to questions of causality. It argues that historical theorists after the linguistic turn have paid surprisingly little attention to causes in spite of the centrality of causation in many contemporary works of history.Introduction: Causality after the Linguistic Turn 1. Intellectual Historians and the Content of the Form 2. Social History, Cultural History, Other Histories 3. Causes, Events and Evidence 4. Time, Narrative and Causality 5. Explanation and Understanding 6. Theories of Action and the Archaeology of Knowledge Conclusion Select Bibliography

Whereas much work on the philosophy of history is produced by philosophers who are writing for their fellows, the author of this survey of approaches to causality in history and the social sciences is himself a distinguished historian of Germany in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. ... The powerful case which History and Causality puts forward should undoubtedly be studied by anyone who has ever questioned the importance of causation in our discipline. - Social History

Mark Hewitson is Professor of German History and Politics at University College London, UK. His publications include National Identity and Political Thought in Germany (2000), Germany and the Causes of the First World War (2004) and Nationalism in Germany, 18481866 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).