Abstract

Within his metahistorical thesis, White makes three assumptions about the nature of historical writing. First, he argues that "histories proper" and "philosophies of history" differ in emphasis and not in content because both share a common narrative strategy. However, White fails to acknowledge the vast differences in scope, principles of interpretation, and meaning between the two disciplines. Second, White assumes that the activity of ordering the historical text is a poetic act. This approach ignores the fact that events and the relationships of those events exist prior to and independent of the historical account. Moreover, his tropological structures are too inflexible to provide a useful understanding of historical discourse. Finally, he never questions the validity of viewing an historical work as a purely linguistic structure. In fact, whereas "histories proper" seem to have much in common to compare and to evaluate, "philosophies of history" almost never agree