"The quality of this work is so high that it will challenge and reward even readers whose critical presuppositions diverge from those which LaCapra represents so provocatively."—Richard Terdiman, University of California, Santa Cruz "LaCapra here...

"LaCapra offers an intriguing collection of essays to support both his enthusiasm for intellectual history . . . and his concern about the 'excesses' he finds in techniques and practices of the new social history. Admitting that the essays are...

A pioneering treatise that aroused great controversy when it was first published in 1725, Vico's New Science is acknowledged today to be one of the few works of authentic genius in the history of social theory. It represents the most ambitious attempt...

Dominick LaCapra calls for a new view of intellectual history—one that will revitalize the importance of reading and interpreting significant texts. In ten essays, he reformulates the problem of the relation between the "great" texts of the Western...

This book argues that history and sociology share the same vital preoccupation: the desire to unravel the puzzle of human agency.