History as Re-enactment R. G. Collingwood's Idea of History [Paperback]

This book explains and defends a central ideas in the theory of history put forward by R. G. Collingwood, perhaps the foremost philosopher of history in the 20th century. Professor Dray analyses critically the idea of re-enactment, explores the limits of its applicability, and determines its relationship to other key Collingwoodian ideas, such as the role of imagination in historical thinking, and the indispensability of a point of view.

1. History and Philosophy
2. Re-enactment and Understanding
3. Re-enactment and Laws
4. Intellect, Rationality, Feeling
5. The Physical and the Social
6. The Historical Imagination
7. The Ideality of History
8. The Perspectivity of History
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index

Dray is a very careful writer, and his analysis of Collingwood's philosophy of history is unparalleled in its scope and in its balance. [He] is also a very clear writer, and the book is well organized...[A] fine study, perhaps the single best account of the pertinent ideas of this century's most eminent philosopher of history. --Modern Europe