Historicism (The New Critical Idiom)

Hamilton's book advertizes itself as an accomplishment in finally clarifying for us the confusing and controversial notion of "historicism." It provides a good survey of the key figures and philosophical commitments in the history of historicism and attempts to deal with the stakes involved in contemporary investments of the concept. But Hamilton's text turns out to be, at best, a kind of apologia and, at worst, a "how-to." Consequently, his assessment--and understanding, I'm affraid--of historicism is delivered from the position of a believer and advocate. This contributes to the reproduction of a lot of conventional mantras about historicism, such as, for example, that it somehow represented--and still does--an "anti-modernist" position. We are still modernist, in a sense, and this is why, as this book demonstrates, it is difficult to think outside the framework of historicism. A provocative book, but not deserving of its authoritative title.