Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-century Europe

Metahistory:
The Historical Imagination in 19th-century Europe

Author	Hayden White
Language	English
Subject	Historiography
Publisher	Johns Hopkins University
Publication date	1973
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print
ISBN	0-8018-1761-7
OCLC	2438028

Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-century Europe is a work of historiography by Hayden White first published in 1973. On the second page of his introduction, White stated:

My own analysis of the deep structure of the historical imagination of Nineteenth century Europe is intended to provide a new perspective on the current debate over the nature and function of historical knowledge.^[1]

The theoretical framework is outlined in the first 50 pages of the book, which consider in detail eight major figures of 19th-century history and the philosophy of history. The larger context of historiography and writing in general is also considered. White's approach uses systematically a fourfold structural schema with two terms mediating between a pair of opposites.