‘The Historical Approach’ and ‘The Historian’s Journey’, from History: The Last Things Before the Last (Kracauer 1968)

Abstract

This chapter is a close analysis of the two chapters from Kracauer’s 1968 book History: The Last Things Before the Last. The chapter covers the influence of Husserl’s concept of the Lebenswelt on Kracauer’s conception of history and explores Kracauer’s notion of ‘ante-room history. Here, Kracauer compares film and photography with historiography, and sets out a conception of non-linear historical time. The notion of the historian, and the exile, as ‘palimpsest’, is also considered. The influence of the art theorist Clement Greenberg on Kracauer’s application of notions of medium specificity to film, photography and historiography is also considered