The universal history to bring all universal histories to an end

The curious case of Volney

Bibliographic Data

ID12903201
AuthorsAudrey Borowski (0009-0000-3584-8173, University of Bonn, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume33
Issue3
Pages491-505
Publication date2023-03-09
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueIntellectual History Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1749-6977 • E-ISSN: 1749-6985
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17496977.2023.2179907
OpenAlexW4323662016
LanguageEN
References cited17

The French writer, explorer, and historian Constantin-François de Volney (1757–1820) has been interpreted as embracing a Eurocentric Orientalism and a typically Enlightenment progressivist historical understanding. In this article, however, I argue that, far from simply offering yet another rationalistic or teleological historical narrative, Volney set out to refound the historical discipline by erecting historiography on a firmly empirical basis in order to repudiate the idea of historical design altogether. In this respect, his best-known work, The Ruins, or Meditations on the Revolutions of Empires (1791), seems to occupy a special status in his oeuvre in that it did not confine its analyses to the epistemological realm and historiographical practice, but explicitly linked historical narratives and practice to historical developments themselves, ascribing civilizational decline and devastation predominantly to ignorance and blind faith in religion or myths of the past. According to this reasoning, a new, more critical historical practice – akin to social anthropology – would, by making people conscious of their historical agency, liberate historical development itself and ideally bring an end to seemingly unending cycles of political tyranny and social destruction

Agency (philosophy · Art · Enlightenment · Epistemology · Historiography · Ignorance · Literature · Narrative · Orientalism · Political science · Politics · Realm · Teleology · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · History, Culture, and Diplomacy · Law · Philosophy

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