| Leopold Von Ranke |
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| german historians | |
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| 1795 births | |
| 1886 deaths | |
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Leopold von Ranke ( December 21 , 1795 - May 23 , 1886 ) was one of the greatest German Historian s of the 19th Century , and is frequently considered the founder of "scientific" history. Ranke set the tone for much of later historical writing, introducing such ideas as reliance on primary sources, an emphasis on narrative history and especially international politics (''Aussenpolitik'') and a commitment to writing history "as it essentially {Link without Title} " (''wie es eigentlich gewesen''). Beginning with his first book, the ''History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations from 1494 to 1514'', Ranke used an unusually wide variety of sources for a historian of the age, including "memoirs, diaries, letters, diplomatic dispatches and first-hand accounts of eye-witnesses." In this sense he leaned on the traditions of Philology but emphasized mundane documents instead of old and exotic literature. At the core of his method, Ranke did not believe general theories could cut across time and space. Instead, he made statements about the time using quotations from primary sources. He said, "My understanding of 'leading ideas' is simply that they are the dominant tendencies in each century. These tendencies, however, can only be described; they can not, in the last resort, be summed up in a concept." The laws by which history emerged were unknown to him, and he preferred to let the mystery be, instead focusing on what some term "mindless empiricism." Ranke was also the great-uncle of British historian Edward Hallett Carr . MAJOR WORKS
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