The Idea of History

R.G. Collingwood died in 1943, but it is perhaps only since his death that historians have begun to recognize the debt they owe to him. In this book, posthumously, which was described as containing the last words of 'one of the great voices of our time', he considers how the modern idea of history has grown up from the time of Herodotus to the present day. To Collingwood, 'history is not contained in books and documents, it lives only as a present interest and pursuit, in the mind of the historian when he criticizes and interprets those documents, and by so doing relives for himself the states of mind into which he inquires'.