Intellectual History

Intellectual history refers to the historiography of ideas and thinkers. This history cannot be considered without the knowledge of the humans who created, discussed, wrote about, and in other ways were concerned with ideas. Intellectual history as practiced by historians is parallel to the history of philosophy as done by philosophers, and is more akin to the history of ideas. Its central premise is that ideas do not develop in isolation from the people who create and use them, and that one must study ideas not as abstract propositions but in terms of the culture, lives, and historical contex Intellectual history refers to the historiography of ideas and thinkers. This history cannot be considered without the knowledge of the humans who created, discussed, wrote about, and in other ways were concerned with ideas. Intellectual history as practiced by historians is parallel to the history of philosophy as done by philosophers, and is more akin to the history of ideas. Its central premise is that ideas do not develop in isolation from the people who create and use them, and that one must study ideas not as abstract propositions but in terms of the culture, lives, and historical contexts that produced them. (Grafton 2006)

Intellectual history aims to understand ideas from the past by understanding them in context. The term "context" in the preceding sentence is ambiguous: it can be political, cultural, intellectual, and social. One can read a text both in terms of a chronological context (for example, as a contribution to a discipline or tradition as it extended over time) or in terms of a contemporary intellectual moment (for example, as participating in a debate particular to a certain time and place). Both of these acts of contextualization are typical of what intellectual historians do, nor are they exclusive. Generally speaking, intellectual historians seek to place concepts and texts from the past in multiple contexts.

It is important to realize that intellectual history is not just the history of intellectuals. It studies ideas as they are expressed in texts, and as such is different from other forms of cultural history which deal also with visual and other non-verbal forms of evidence. Any written trace from the past can be the object of intellectual history. The concept of the "intellectual" is relatively recent, and suggests someone professionally concerned with thought. Instead, anyone who has put pen to paper to explore his or her thoughts can be the object of intellectual history. A famous example of an intellectual history of a non-canonical thinker is Carlo Ginzburg's study of a 16th-century Italian miller, Menocchio, in his seminal work The Cheese and the Worms.

Although the field emerged from European disciplines of Kulturgeschichte and Geistesgeschichte, the historical study of ideas has engaged not only western intellectual traditions but others as well, including those in other parts of the world. Increasingly, historians are calling for a Global intellectual history that will show the parallels and interrelations in the history of thought of all human societies. Another important trend has been the history of the book and of reading, which has drawn attention to the material aspects of how books were designed, produced, distributed, and read. ...more

Intellectual History Books

Socialism Is Dead! Long Live Socialism!: The Marx Code—Socialism with a Human Face: A New World Order

The Metaphysical Club : A Story of Ideas in America

The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century

Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud

The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea

The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism

The German Genius: Europe's Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution, and the Twentieth Century

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750

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Lists

Life In Instalments by Danielle Sartorelli

Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson

U.S. History Reading List

487 books — 211 voters

The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 by George H. Nash

The Declaration of Independence by Carl Lotus Becker

Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville

The Federalist Papers by Founding Fathers

United States of Ideas II (nonfiction)

162 books — 22 voters

Baptized in Blood by Charles Reagan Wilson

The Secret Life of a Weight-Obsessed Woman by Iris Ruth Pastor

God's Almost Chosen Peoples by George C. Rable

Christians and the American Civil War, 1861-1865 (nonfiction)

49 books — 12 voters

Never Go with Your Gut by Gleb Tsipursky

United States of Ideas I (nonfiction)

239 books — 55 voters

Націоналізм, сексуальність, орієнталізм by Соломія Павличко

Паралельний світ. Дослідження з історії уявлень та ідей в Укр... by Наталя Яковенко

Ukrainian intellectual history - Українська інтелектуальна історія

130 books — 17 voters

The Declaration of Independence and the United States Constit... by Founding Fathers

The Federalist Papers & Anti-Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton

The Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson

American Founding Texts (nonfiction)

54 books — 14 voters

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Quotes Tagged “Intellectual History”

“ But he had expressed to Mme. du Chatelet the hope that a way out might lie in applying philosophy to history, and endeavoring to trace, beneath the flux of political events, the history of the human mind. 'Only philosophers should write history,' he said. 'In all nations, history is disfigured by fable, till at last philosophy comes to enlighten man; and when it does finally arrive in the midst of darkness, it finds the human mind so blinded centuries of error, that it can hardly undeceive it; i ...more ”
― Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers

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“ History, too, has a penchant for giving birth to itself over and over again, and those whom it appoints agents of change and progress do not always accept their destinies willingly. ”
― Aberjhani, Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays

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Videos Tagged “Intellectual History”

Why Is There a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics?

“Convergence and Divergence in Pentateuchal Theory: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Israel, North America, and Europe.” 2 of 2

Groups Tagged "Intellectual History"

Early Modern History, 16th-18th Century

This is a group for all those with an interest in Early Modern history (roughly from 1500-1800, …more

49 members, last active 4 years ago

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