Historia conceptual e historia política

Abstract

The article examines the significance of the conceptual history [Begriffsgeschichte] in the context of a revival of political history in German historiography since the early 2000s. These debates have been shaped by a specific concept of communication and a broad concept of the political. The article shows that both political history and the conceptual history implicitly share many of the same basic assumptions. This has served to reinforce the trend of extending the conceptual history to historical semantics that systematically connects long-term language change and conflictive communicative situations. A variety of examples from recent research demonstrates how this trend in research has revealed significant historical shifts within the basic patterns of political communication.