This important book charts the development of philosophical thinking about history over the past 250 years, combining extracts from key texts with new explanatory and critical discussion. The book is designed to make the work of thinkers such as Hume, Herder, Hegel, Dilthey, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Foucault accessible to students with no prior knowledge of Western philosophy.

An introductory section is followed by nine further chapters exploring contrasting schools of thought. The volume reveals the origins of contemporary trends in the discipline and relates wider philosophical reflections to the study of history itself. It also points to connections between philosophy of history and literary and cultural theory which have developed in recent decades.

Robert M. Burns is Lecturer in the Department of Historical and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths College, London. He completed undergraduate degrees in History and Theology and obtained his doctorate at Princeton University in philosophy of religion. In the last ten years at Goldsmiths he has introduced and developed courses in the history of philosophy including a course in philosophy of history out of which the present book emerged. He is the author of The Great Debate on Miracles: From Joseph Glanvill to David Hume (1981).

Hugh Rayment-Pickard received his PhD from the University of London for a thesis on Jacques Derrida. He taught philosophy of history and history of philosophy for several years in the Department of Historical and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He is also a priest in the Church of England