Universal History - Historiography

Historiography

The roots of historiography in the 19th century are bound up with the concept that history written with a strong connection to the primary sources could, somehow, be integrated with "the big picture", i.e. to a general, universal history. For example, Leopold von Ranke, probably the pre-eminent historian of the 19th century, founder of "Rankean positivism," the classic mode of historiography that now stands against postmodernism, attempted to write a Universal History at the close of his career. The work of Oswald Spengler and Arnold J. Toynbee are two examples of attempts to integrate primary source -based history and Universal History. Spengler's work is more general; Toynbee created a theory that would allow the study of "civilizations" to proceed with integration of source-based history writing and Universal History writing. Both writers attempted to incorporate teleological theories into general presentations of the history.