Review

Author(s): Ulrich Plass

Review by: Ulrich Plass
Source: The German Quarterly, Vol. 79, No. 1 (Winter, 2006), pp. 140-141
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Association of Teachers of German
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27675909
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140

German

Book

Quarterly

winter

Reviews

2006

Reinhard. Futures Past. On theSemantics ofHistorical Time. Trans. Keith

Koselleck,
Tribe. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.317 pp. $24.50 paperback.

Keith Tribe's translation of Reinhart Koselleck's 1979 classic Vergangene Zukunft is a

welcome addition to the excellent recent edition of Koselleck's The Practice ofConceptual
History (Stanford 2002). Futures Past is a "revised and corrected translation" of an earlier
edition published by theMIT Press in 1985. In his introduction, the translator notes
are almost

amore
accessible
and less literal
stylistic,
entirely
seeking
a few errors in the
in the process
translation
have been
rendering
original
n.
new
a
identified
Whether
this
translation
(vii,
2).
presents
stylistic
to debate.
at times,
is
Koselleck's
deliberate
and
is,
open
improvement
style
plodding,
use of
the frequent
constructions
and the passive
voice?necessitated
impersonal
by its
matter
create an additional
obstacle
for a readable
None
translation.
subject
English
in
in
Tribe
succeeds
Koselleck's
theless,
precise
rendering
style
admirably
phrasings.
a cursory
a
While
of the new
translation
with
the older one reveals
comparison
good
no
one cannot
it shows
number
of changes,
However,
improvements.
significant
help
across a
errors. Punctuation
are often
but stumble
of typographical
marks
large number
"the revisions

that

of the original;
and corrected"

even

missing;

entire

are

quotations

not

as

formatted

such

(for

instance,

142).

p.

Mangled sentences like "Corresponding to thiswe might one could [sic] seek interpreta
tion.... (220)" prove that the goal of providing a correctededition has been pitifully
missed.
in connection

Composed

with

Koselleck's

to

contributions

the ground-breaking

Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, the essays in Futures Past serve a dual purpose: on the one
hand, they provide studies of specific documents of reflective historical inquiry such as
von

Lorenz
elaborate

Stein's
essay
on Koselleck's

traces the
liantly
tion or "Neuzeit."
structure

in the

on

the Prussian
of

project

semantic

on

constitution;

"conceptual
of modern

history."

the other hand,

they further
For example,
Koselleck
bril
of movement
such as revolu

concepts
an advanced
interest
theoretical
share, as the title suggests,
time. Tribe's
the
felicitous
"futures
reflects
phrase
past"

genealogy

All

essays
of historical

plural form contained in the German subtitle: Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten. The
splitting up of natural or chronological time into a diversity of distinct historical tempo
ralities (geschichtlicheZeiten) signals the beginning of the modern reign of history.
as a form of
is that we must
seek to understand
point
modernity
temporal
an ever
that implies
relation
of past and future,
of experience
and
changing
on
can
of
and
Such
transformative
the
relations
be
detected
memory
expectation,
hope.
come
to
of
and
levels
historical
concepts.
onomasiological
semasiological
Every attempt
a
an inevitable
to terms with
determines
of a future,
but the
past experience
projection

Koselleck's

experience

relation
"new

between

the

two

is never

a "former

temporality,"

stable.

future,"

The

leads

modern

to "an increase

of
experience
in the
weight

the

present
of the future

as a
in

[one's] range of experience" (3).This shift in historical perspective allows Koselleck an

elegant superimposition of the categories of facticity and possibility, captured in the
phrase

"futures

past."

present a monolithic
situations

historical

to

accessible
concentration

Despite

this Heideggerian

philosophy
in which

analysis.

One

camp

inmates.

resonance,

a
tension
between
productive
instance
is Koselleck's
remarkable
These

Koselleck's

essays

do not

of history. He focuses on linguistically articulated

dreams

cross

the

past and
account

threshold

of

future

becomes

of dreams

"literal"

historical

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by

REVIEWS: German Studies across theDisciplines

the
recounting
a
disclose
touching

Instead
witnessing.
dreams.
camp
They

of

terror

of

image

141

are
the camps,
these dreams
"utopian
of home
the
electric
fence
[...].
beyond

The pure facticity of the camp is blanked out, and the past transferred intowishes for
the future." (214) This example exceeds all others in the book, since it presents an
extreme form of temporality inwhich the future can only be rendered?beyond
all
hope?as
tial element

a "future

past:"
of modern

it is the only

the

temporality,
and
pair of experience
the limit of his approach:

structuring
also marks

in the book
inwhich
the essen
example
has been
and Koselleck's
eradicated,
no
this example
Thus,
expectation
longer applies.
"Such salvational
dreams
[...] resist any further
historical

future,

sociohistorical examination" (215).More than 35 years after the original publication of

this work,
the acuity
remain
undiminished.

Ulrich

and

of Koselleck's

range

and

analyses

reflections

theoretical

Plass

Wesleyan University

Charles E. Prophets, Paupers, orProfessionals? A Social History ofEvery

McClelland,
inModern Germany, 1850-Present. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2003.
Visual
Artists
day
238 pp. $52.95 paperback.

To write

a social history of visual artists in Germany

from 1850 to the present in

to this chal
is a daunting
task. In responding
pages
slightly
a concise
to this
in
introduction
McClelland
has succeeded
producing
lenge, Charles
of
his
is to cover the complete
indicated
broad topic. His
artists,
range
emphasis
by
goal
on the notion
is that the
artist.
for its significance
His
of the "everyday"
argument
in the industries
of advertising
and
such as those working
"masses
of everyday
artists,
on the
celebrities...."
than individual
have a greater
(15). Although
impact
public
design,
more

McClelland

that

two-hundred

speaks of everyday artists, this is not a history of the day-to-day

lives of

social
of professionalization,
education,
questions
chiefly
at all with
artists'
but deals scarcely
and organizations,
the art market,
status,
incomes,
and other
social networks,
actual working
and living
conditions,
marriage,
family,
common
to social
the study with
further
circumscribes
themes
history. McClelland

artists.

another
wide

He

is concerned

concept?the
of
spectrum

amateur
educated

with

Interest
and

Community
associations

a
it, includes
artists:
professional
art historians,
critics,

as he defines

of Art" ?which,
with

full-time

affiliated

people
of art, curators,
and part-time
dealers,
artists,
professors
he refers to the latter as "the organized
and Kunstvereine;
consumers,

face of the

local Interest Community ofArt" (129). On another major theme, McClelland declares
that "noprofession is sowrapped inmyth as the artists" (167) and throughout the book,
especially
geniuses,

in chapter
visionaries,

six,

he

prophets,

examines
outsiders,

critically
political

the

"myths"
and

radicals,

of

artists

starving

as heroes,
Bohemians.

McClelland's
approach to the social history of artists is shaped largely by the
that
informed his earlier studies of the professions inGermany. The first
methodology
is to define who is an artist (chapter two), which he addresses from
therefore
question
numerous

perspectives?education
tion participation,
peer recognition?but,

and

training,
organizational
in the end an unavoidable

membership,
subjectivity

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exhibi
under