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Jacob Burckhardt: historian of civilization.

From: Contemporary Review  |  Date: 11/1/1997  |  Author: Burckhardt, Olivier

Jacob Burckhardt was as modest about his intellectual achievements as he was in the way he lived his life. Staying in a rented room for most of his academic life he maintained that he only managed to abstract universal truths by constructing analogies between facts. He focused on humanity's growth toward freedom and provided several perspectives about this adventure in 'Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy' and 'Force and Freedom: Reflections in History.'

Few modern historians have been ...

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