Narrative and History Category

Progress as a Secularized Eschatology

Nineteenth-century Victorian scientific naturalists had a particular conception of scientific and social progress. In his “The Progress of Science 1837-1887” (1887), Thomas Henry Huxley argued that a “revolution” had taken place, both politically and socially, in the modern world. In brief, scientific progress came with the adoption of a naturalistic approach to studying nature. Any […]

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Narrative and History: Hayden White’s Philosophy of History

Historians of the late nineteenth century were quick to disassociate their discipline from literature, arguing that historical writing was like scientific analysis. History does not have “aesthetic forms”—it was not a “narrative.” History was a science. But by late twentieth century, theorists and historians were beginning to emphasize—or perhaps re-emphasize—the links between history, narrative, and […]

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