Key Metaphors for History

Javier Fernández-Sebastián is Professor Emeritus at the University of the Basque Country. He has worked extensively on conceptual history and has recently been interested in the theory of history. His latest publications include: Historia conceptual en el Atlántico ibérico (2021), Metafóricas espacio-temporales para la historia (2021) and Tiempos de la historia, tiempos del derecho (2021).

"Fernández-Sebastián’s greatest achievement in writing this book is to be found in his ability to present the discourse on metaphors for history as an in-depth analysis of the main methodological and theoretical questions that have emerged over the last 50 years in the study of history...[This book] is a profound and up-to-date reflection on the state of historiography and on the conception of history through the analysis of metaphors."Luigi Alonzi, review in Redescriptions: Political Thought, Conceptual History and Feminist Theory 27(2): 235–241"Javier Fernández-Sebastián's Key Metaphors for History: Mirrors of Time is probably the most systematic, solid and erudite attempt to develop an intellectual history of historical metaphorology...By scrutinising the metaphorical background of concepts such as collective memory, modernity, crisis, revolution, past and, of course, history, Fernández-Sebastián offers us a kind of historical-tropological dictionary."Rodrigo Escribano Roca, review in Síntesis. Revista de Filosofía VII(2) 2024: 148–154 (translated from original Spanish)"[This] book allows us to understand in a more conscious and critical way the historical thought of the past. Even more, it helps us to situate our way of thinking and writing history today."Mario Migliaccio, review in "Storia del pensiero politico, Rivista quadrimestrale" 2/2024, 305–308 (translated from original Italian)"A largely unprecedented effort and only possible through admirable intellectual vigor and erudition, the work presents us with a careful analysis of metaphorical production in the textual, imagistic and pictorial domains that seeks to reconstitute the 'stable substrate' of the 'historical imagination of ordinary people'...[The book] invites us to imagine how our commitment to history, both as a discipline and as fundamental knowledge for life in society, can constantly be reinvented with creativity, aesthetic openness and responsibility for a community that is currently facing immense ethical and political challenges."Luisa Rauter Pereira, review in Varia Historia, v. 40, e24024, 2024 (translated from original Portuguese)

• Introduction. The power of metaphors / Chapter 1. Metaphorizing history / Chapter 2. Time and memory / Chapter 3. Pasts, presents, and futures / Chapter 4. Sources, events, processes / Chapter 5. Modernity, crisis, revolution / Chapter 6. Progress, decline, transition / Chapter 7. Final thoughts