The volume is similar in format to the _Logic_, the _Philosophy of the Practical_, and the _Æsthetic_. The last is now out of print, but will reappear translated by me from the definitive fourth Italian edition, greatly exceeding in bulk the previous editions.
The present translation is from the second Italian edition, published in 1919. In this the author made some slight verbal corrections and a few small additions. I have, as always, followed the text with the closest respect.
I. History and Chronicle II. Pseudo-Histories III. History as History of the Universal. Criticism of 'Universal History' IV. Ideal Genesis and Dissolution of the 'Philosophy of History' V. The Positivity of History VI. The Humanity of History VII. Choice and Periodization VIII. Distinction (Special Histories) and Division IX. The 'History of Nature' and History
APPENDICES I. Attested Evidence II. Analogy and Anomaly of Special Histories III. Philosophy and Methodology
I. Preliminary Questions II. Græco-Roman Historiography III. Medieval Historiography IV. The Historiography of the Renaissance V. The Historiography of the Enlightenment VI. The Historiography of Romanticism VII. The Historiography of Positivism VIII. The New Historiography. Conclusion
'Contemporary history' is wont to be called the history of a passage of time, looked upon as a most recent past, whether it be that of the last fifty years, a decade, a year, a month, a day, or indeed of the last hour or of the last minute. But if we think and speak rigorously, the term 'contemporaneous' can be applied only to that history which comes into being immediately after the act which is being accomplished, as consciousness of that act: it is, for instance, the history that I make of myself while I am in the act of composing these pages; it is the thought of my composition, linked of necessity to the work of composition. 'Contemporary' would be well employed in this case, just because this, like every act of the spirit, is outside time (of the first and after) and is formed 'at the same time' as the act to which it is linked, and from which it is distinguished by means of a distinction not chronological but ideal. 'Non-contemporary history,' 'past history,' would, on the other hand, be that which finds itself in the presence of a history already formed, and which thus comes into being as a criticism of that history, whether it be thousands of years or hardly an hour old.