Revisiting Mesohistory in Gregorovius

TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Revisiting Mesohistory in Gregorovius

In a moment of inspiration on Tuesday 03 October 1854, 171 years ago today, Ferdinand Gregorovius (19 January 1821 – 01 May 1891), conceived his multi-volume Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter (1859–1872), translated into English as The History of Rome in the Middle Ages (1894–1902). K. F. Morrison described this inspiration such that: “He saw Rome as a point of intersection for the great forces whose conflicts had generated European civilization.”

In last year’s episode on Gregorovius I characterized his history of Rome as mesohistory, because it falls between the microhistory of Carlo Ginzburg and the macrohistory of William MacNeill, to cite two of the best known names, but certainly not the only examplars of these schools of thought. Since then I’ve happened on Daniel Little’s exposition of mesohistory in his New Contributions to the Philosophy of History, and I describe that in this episode.

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