Geschichte als präzisierte Wissenschaft

Johann Christoph Gatterer (1727–1799) represents the history of the German Enlightenment as no other has ever done. He wrote ten compendia of universal history along with handbooks on geneaology, diplomatics, chronology, heraldry, statistics and several on geography. He founded two modern trade journals and the first institute for historical studies ever. In addition, he engaged in meteorological work and attempted to link diplomatics to botany. History ”in its entirety” was the motto of his universal history and his institute. What was important to him was history as a precise science. The book describes Gatterer’s construction of history in its parts and in context – a world of construction, not of narration, which is foreign to us and in whose architecture modern historiography has been included.