The modern practice of history was an invention of 19th-century Germany. Its godfather, the rock-ribbed Leopold von Ranke, spurned belles-lettristic history in favor of archival research. Rankean "historical positivism" aspired to value-free objectivity. Its cornerstone was the high political narrative of nation-states, particularly their diplomacy and wars. "To history," Ranke wrote in his first book, "has been assigned the office of judging the past, of instructing the present for the benefit of future ages. To such high offices this work does not aspire: it wants only to show what actually happened."

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