The Idea of History

The Idea of History, first published in 1946, became a canonical text. It linked the practise of philosophical thought with the job of the historian to place themselves in the minds of those men whose deeds he was placing into a context. Collingwood begins with the Greeks and Romans, writing of Livy, Tacitus, Herodotus and Thucydides, then progressing to the early modern period throughout Europe and focussing in turn on each of the main centres of historical thought: Italy, Germany, France and England.