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WHITE, H., Metahistory. The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore / London, 1975. XII,448p. Paperback. ‘This is an immensely ambitious undertaking, requiring mastery of philosophy and historiography as well as of linguistic theory. White is one of the very few historians who has made it his business to acquire such a combination of skills, and the result of his labours is a book what will simply have to be reckoned with by all historians who have the slightest interest in the genesis and forms of historical narrative. (…) White is the first to have tried to grapple systematically with the manner in which literary artistry is not merely decorative or ancillary but integral to the historical work in hand. One can argue with him about his priorities, that is, one can admit the significance of linguistic strategy without going all the way with him in making it paramount in works of history as well as in philosophy of history. (…) It is far from an easy book to read. But the effort is very much worthwhile. For it teaches one to regard the great works of history from a fresh and fruitful point of view as well as to become aware of new dimensions in the work of one’s contemporaries; and to recall, in one’s one work, that (in White’s words) ‘knowledge is a product of a wrestling not only with the ‘facts’ but with one’s self (p.191).’ (JOHN CLIVE in The Journal of Modern History, 1975, pp.542-543). € 25.00 (Antiquarian) ISBN: 9780801817618