Originally published on January 13, 2025 (Episode 392)
Introduction
He was criticized as a “mere burrower into archives”; as a dry man without ideas; as a painter of miniatures rather than broad portraits; as too conservative by liberals, and not conservative enough by conservatives. Some thought him driven by Lutheran religiosity, while others hailed him as an antidote to teleology and mysticism.
This was Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886). Over his long career he influenced the historical world through his writings and—just as importantly—through his students, and their students after them. He did not invent the footnote or the insistence upon primary sources, but more than anyone else he established them as the essential tools of history as a modern discipline.
With me to discuss Ranke is Suzanne Marchand, for her fourth appearance on Historically Thinking.
About the Guest
Suzanne L. Marchand is Boyd Professor of European Intellectual History at Louisiana State University, and President-Elect (2026) of the American Historical Association. She is the author of Down from Olympus: Archaeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750–1970, German Orientalism in the Age of Empire, and Porcelain: A History from the Heart of Europe.
For Further Investigation
Suzanne Marchand, German Orientalism in the Age of Empire (Cambridge, 2010)
—, Down from Olympus: Archaeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750–1970
—, Porcelain: A History from the Heart of Europe (Princeton, 2020)
Georg G. Iggers, The German Conception of History: The National Tradition of Historical Thought from Herder to the Present (Wesleyan, 1984)
Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge, 1988)
Leopold von Ranke, History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations, 1494–1514
Related Episodes
“Porcelain” with Suzanne Marchand
“The Chicken and the Egg: Pamela Crossley and Suzanne Marchand on change and causality in history”
“Suzanne Marchand on Intellectual Humility and Historical Thinking”
Listen & Discuss
Ranke: genius innovator or fussy footnote fanatic? Share your take in the comments—and then pass this episode along to someone who still thinks the footnote was invented in Chicago.
