Semantics of Emptiness

The parameters of the classical science of history are put to the test: Hölscher questions the unity of historical reality.

Systematic blank spaces such as forgetting, the future and the empty distance between things are the areas that contain potential meanings for the science of history. Without them, the writing of history could be no more than the continual recording and re-quoting of sources. However, due to the fact that they help us to create history as a whole, they also constitute history itself as a realm of reality.
Lucian Hölscher discusses these connections in four chapters: I. the development of the historical world in space and time, II. The borders of memory and the historical meaning of forgetting, III. The generation of the future and IV. Historical breaks in the 20th century.

The Author
Lucian Hölscher, born in 1948, is a Professor of Recent History and Theory of History at the University of Bochum.