In the essay, I will talk about the impact of the "Rankean Revolution" in history. Firstly, I will give an overview of what the "Rankean Revolution" was and who it involved. In the second paragraph, I will discuss the disadvantages of the methods used by Ranke. In the third paragraph, I intend to give a brief description of how histgraphy has developed since the revolution, with paying particular attention to the French Annales, and the impact the revolution had on them.
What was the Rankean Revolution:.
The Rankean Revolution is so-called after Leopold Van Ranke, a German historian, who re-evaluated the course of the way in which history was recorded in the 19th century. Born in 1795, he held a distinguished career in teaching and lecturing at various schools and universities around Germany. He was given titles such as "the greatest German historian" and "the founder of the science of history". His firm belief in using facts alone was the basis for the revolution. He was arguably, the father of method history, and the founder of modern source-based history. Von Ranke sought to create a view of the past independent of the mind of the individual 1. He dealt with facts; there was no bias, no decorative commentary, just "facts produced by the reality"2. Von Ranke's epitaph probably should have been "Wie es eighethich gewes en" translated to describe Von Rankes version of historiography - "as it really was". Von Rankes ideal was a "top-down" history. He was interested in states and governments, but seemed uninterested in the history of the "common man", or even culture, art and society. At this time his method was extremely popular and effective, a revolution so to speak. His way was to "not judge the past, but to simply show how it was"3. His methods of impartial research are still used to the present day but have rightly been updated and changed since this time, as they were extremely outdated, even in the early part of the 20th century.
