Avveniva durante l'Ottocento e avviene anche oggi che nelle discussioni su che cosa sia e su come vada scritta la storia, emerga, prima o poi, il nome di Ranke. Per avvicinarsi al pensiero di questo autore, il presente volume ne propone, in nuova o prima versione italiana, alcuni dei testi teoricamente più rappresentativi e controversi. Dalla 'Premessa' alle Storie dei popoli romani e germanici (1824), si snoda un percorso che consente di valutare non soltanto la sua visione dell'Europa moderna, ma anche quale orientamento egli ebbe come teorico e metodologo. Di particolare rilievo per la storia della cultura la prolusione per l'ordinariato del 1836 sui rapporti tra storiografia, arte e politica. Da segnalare la nuova traduzione di 'Le Grandi Potenze' e 'Dialogo Politico'. La presentazione di Fulvio Tessitore e l'introduzione di Santi Di Bella informano sul significato filosofico e sul valore storico-politico dei testi, ripercorrendone la genesi compositiva.

Un protestante alla corte dei Papi. Per anni Ranke cercò di essere ammesso agli archivi vaticani, ma la sua religione glielo impedì. Determinato in ogni modo a scrivere una storia del papato, ci riesce rielaborando dei documenti unici posseduti da nobili famiglie di Venezia e Roma. Una storia unica, dunque, per diversi motivi: sia per il punto di vista esterno, che s'imprime in un lavoro storico e cronologico rigoroso, sia per la presenza di fonti inedite. Ranke è lo storico che coniò il termine Controriforma, mentre questo libro contiene anche straordinari ritratti di Paolo IV, Ignazio di Loyola e Pio V.

Leopold von Ranke, who was born in 1795, is considered to be one of the founders of the modern practice of writing history. This collection of his writings, edited and introduced by Georg G. Iggers, was first published in 1973 and remains the leading collection of Ranke’s writings in the English language.

Now updated with the needs of current students in mind, this edition includes previously untranslated materials by the young Ranke, focusing particularly on the relationship between history and religion together with his inaugural lecture of 1836 ‘On the Relation and Difference between History and Politics’. Including pieces on historical science, and on the relationship between history and philosophy, as well as country specific histories, this book is essential reading for all students of historiography.

Leopold von Ranke, who was born in 1795, is considered to be one of the founders of the modern practice of writing history. This collection of his writings, edited and introduced by Georg G. Iggers, was first published in 1973 and remains the leading collection of Ranke's writings in the English language.

Now updated with the needs of current students in mind, this edition includes previously untranslated materials by the young Ranke, focusing particularly on the relationship between history and religion together with his inaugural lecture of 1836, 'On the Relation and Difference between History and Politics'. Including pieces on historical science, and on the relationship between history and philosophy, as well as country-specific histories, this book is essential reading for all students of historiography.

Georg G. Iggers is Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has published numerous influential works on historiography including his co-authored Global History of Historiography (2008) and Twentieth Century Historiography (2005). He has received many fellowships including the Guggenheim, the Rockefeller, the Newberry Library and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was also formerly a Fulbright fellow and a Woodrow Wilson Center fellow and recipient of Alexander von Humboldt Research Prize. From 1995 to 2000 he was president of the International Commission for the History and Theory of Historiography.