Descent of Ideas

Donald R. Kelley is the James Westfall Thompson Professor of History at Rutgers University and the Executive Editor of the Journal of the History of Ideas. He has written extensively on intellectual history, and his recent books include The Human Measure: Western Social Thought and the Legal Tradition (1990) and Faces of History: Historical Inquiry from Herodotus to Herder (1998) with Fortunes of History: Historical Inquiry from Herder to Huizinga (forthcoming).

• Contents: Introduction: What was the history of ideas?; Prelude: The new philosophy of Victor Cousin; Eclecticism in retrospect; The 'light of philosophy' reborn; The way of ideas and the ways of words; The new eclecticism; The history of literature; The history of science; Human sciences; The history of philosophy; After the new histories; Index.

'Donald Kelley is the undoubted dean of American intellectual historians... in this most recent work he attends to his own protean discipline, the history of ideas, and for the first time tells its story from antiquity to the present. And what a story it is!...Every reader will find something of use in this astonishing cornucopia and something to think about in contemplating the future prospects of the many intertwining disciplines that make up his subject.' Joseph M. Levine, Distinguished Professor of History, Syracuse University, USA '... wide-ranging, densely documented, and philosophically perspicuous... an illuminating study of the history of the history of ideas. Not many American scholars undertake studies of this scope, and even fewer are as good at it as Kelley.' Choice Reviews 'This book is a treasure-trove of reflections on both the nature and the practice of intellectual history, and offers a fine survey of its historical development... there is little doubt that this is an attempt at disciplinary history with few rivals in terms of scope, ambition and execution.' History of Political Thought '... this is an immensely scholarly work, even daunting in its erudition; and it should serve as a seedbed for further research in a multitude of fields within what is now defined as intellectual and cultural history.' History 'Donald R. Kelley has written an information-rich and stimulating study which, as he writes "is a series of mappings and soundings in the large, and largely uncharted, fields of the practice and theory, ante litteram, primarily of intellectual and secondarily of cultural history".' Renaissance Quarterly '... Donald Kelley' s lucid, erudite exploration of the history of intellectual history [...] offers a nuanced and occasionally provocative intervention in contemporary debates about the history, methodologies, and practices of intellectual history... Acutely relevant to historians, Kelley's sober, cogent work deserves a much wider audience; The Descent of Ideas is essential reading for all who inquire under the rubric of ' the human science'...' Sixteenth Century Journal '... elegant monographic survey...' Journal of Contemporary History