RANKE, Leopold.

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Zur Kritik neuerer Geschichtschreiber. First edition, a major work in historiography, establishing the principles of source criticism and dispassionate historical analysis which have led Ranke to be seen as the father of modern professional history. The publication constitutes a separate treatise to accompany his maiden work, the Geschichte der romanischen und germanischen Völker von 1494 bis 1514 (History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations from 1494 to 1514), published the same year. The treatise argues that the critical analysis of tradition is the historian's basic task, a principle Ranke would carry through all his future works - it is thus "more important" (Britannica Online) than the historical study to which it is appended. The treatise was chosen by Printing and the Mind of Man as their entry for Ranke, noting he "set up novel standards of scholarship which have since become accepted by historians of every nation who are not shackled by the straightjacket of narrow dogma... In other words, Ranke tries to assess the value of a source through the explanation of the character of its author" (PMM).

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