The essential tension in the history of concepts. A review essay

Abstract

The book edited by Professor Faustino Oncina (Universidad de Valencia), entitled Tradition and Inno- vation in Intellectual History. Historiographical Methods, illustrates, in my opinion, the tension within the history of concepts and, by extension, within contemporary intellectual history. In this respect, this collective volume might be considered a signicant contribution to contemporary conceptual history and intellectual history for a Spanish-language audience. 2 The book originated from an eponymous confer-ence held in late 2012 at the Universidad de Valencia. The conference took place within the context of the research project »Towards a Comprehensive Conceptual History: Philosophical and Cultural Turns« (FFI2011-24473), in collaboration with the Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung Berlin (ZfL). Considered as a whole, the book shows a double tension between conceptual and intellectual history with a great variety of approaches, propositions, authors and issues...