Includes bibliographical references (p. [194]-206) and index.

History and historicism. The poetics of history -- The nature of historical explanation -- Historicism and historiography -- The rise of historicism. Enlightenment by natural law -- Critiques of enlightenment--Vico and Herder -- Kant and Hegel--towards hermeneutics -- The hermeneutic tradition. Origins of hermeneutics -- Schleiermacher--the grammar and divination of history -- Dilthey's critique of historical reason -- Gadamer and the event of meaning -- Historicism and modernity. Marx's poetry of the future -- Nietzsche's prelude to a philosophy of the future -- Freud, Lacan and the illusion of a future -- Historicism of the present. Foucault--from anti-historicist theory to new historicist practice -- Derrida's postcards -- New historicism -- Postcolonial stylistics and postmodern logic -- Herstory -- Globalization and the end of history.