Jacob Burckhardt Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Felix Gilbert

Critical Essay by Felix Gilbert

SOURCE: "Burckhardt's Concept of Cultural History," in History: Politics or Culture, Princeton University Press, 1990, pp. 46-80.

In the following excerpt, Gilbert describes Burckhardt's intended projects in his early career and one of his early works, The Age of Constantine the Great.

When his years of study came to an end, Jacob Burckhardt decided to work in a particular field of history: in cultural history. What did that decision mean? What did he understand by this term? Did his conception of cultural history undergo significant changes in the course of his life? These are the questions with which this chapter is concerned.

In the early 1840s, cultural history was a small but recognized special field. Karl Dietrich Hüllmann was one of the few professors who offered lectures on cultural history, and he has left a description of what he considered cultural history to be: "So far," he stated, "history has...
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