Rethinking Intellectual History

Dominick LaCapra calls for a new view of intellectual history-one that will revitalize the importance of reading and interpreting significant texts. In ten essays, he reformulates the problem of the relation between the "great" texts of the Western tradition and their contexts. Seeking to refine "context" into a concept useful to historical research, LaCapra urges intellectual historians to learn from lessons and developments in contemporary literary criticism and philosophy, fields that have undertaken a radical reassessment of the reading of texts.

“"This brilliant collection of essays provides a guide to a remarkable range of figures and issues in current critical debate."-David Jobling, St. Andrew's College, Religious Studies Review, July 1985”

"It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of this work for the intellectual historian, philosopher, or literary theorist-in short for anyone concerned with texts."-Larry Shiner, Sangamon State University, Clio, Vol. 14, No. 1, 1984

Dominick LaCapra is Professor Emeritus of History atCornell University. He is the author of many books, includingHistory, Literature, Critical Theory;History and Its Limits: Human, Animal, Violence; andHistory in Transit: Experience, Identity, Critical Theory, all from Cornell.

Dominick LaCapra calls for a new view of intellectual history--one that will revitalize the importance of reading and interpreting significant texts. In ten essays, he reformulates the problem of the relation between the "great" texts of the Western tradition and their contexts. Seeking to refine "context" into a concept useful to historical research, LaCapra urges intellectual historians to learn from lessons and developments in contemporary literary criticism and philosophy, fields that have undertaken a radical reassessment of the reading of texts.

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