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本文译自 Marnie Hughes‑Warrington 所著 Fifty Key Thinkers on History（Routledge，2014 年第三版）一书中关于利奥波德·冯·兰克的词条。
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兰克（1795–1886）

阿克顿勋爵曾这样写到利奥波德·冯·兰克——一位十九世纪的德国现代史学家。¹ 如今，称某人“无色”（即不带任何色彩）远非赞语。然而在阿克顿的时代，“无色”——即隐藏个人观点、恪守事实——却是人们所追求的境界。如阿克顿所言，兰克确实教导历史研究要创新、要批判：他鼓励史学家保存、整理并批判性地检验史料；许多人还相信，他向他们展示了如何做到“无色”。不过，兰克本人是否真的“无色”，却值得质疑。

利奥波德·兰克于1795年生于德国维厄。兰克早年在家庭和著名的舒尔普福特文科中学接受教育，这使他养成了路德宗虔敬主义，并热爱古典语言。1814年，他入读莱比锡大学，在那里接触了J. G. 费希特、弗里德里希·施莱格尔、歌德、弗里德里希·谢林、康德、修昔底德、李维、哈利卡纳索斯的狄奥尼修斯以及巴托尔德·格奥尔格·尼布尔的思想。然而，正如他后来回忆的，他并未阅读多少近代史著作，因为他在其中“只看到大量的史实，其枯燥难懂令[他]望而生畏”。² 1817年，他被任命为普鲁士奥得河畔法兰克福市弗里德里希文科中学的古典学教师。在那里任职期间（1817—1825年），兰克开始对近代史产生了更大的兴趣。这源于他对在人类中寻求上帝印记的追求，以及他渴望在新的专业史学研究领域留下深刻印象的雄心。³

出于对近代史的兴趣，他写出了第一部著作《罗曼与日耳曼诸民族史（1494—1514）》（1824年出版，英译本作《拉丁与条顿诸民族史，1494至1514》，下称《民族史》）。在序言中，兰克试图通过中世纪三次“呼吸”——民族大迁徙、十字军东征和殖民扩张——来证明加洛林帝国所形成的六个民族（拉丁民族：法国、意大利、西班牙；条顿民族：德国、英国和斯堪的纳维亚）的统一性。他声称，在这些发展中，“几乎可以感知到某个单一、闭合事件的统一性”，这种统一性产生了一段共同的历史，并“将各民族更紧密地联系在一起”（《拉丁与条顿诸民族史》序言）。但在正文中，兰克则分别探讨了这六个民族各自的发展，直至它们在十五、十六世纪卷入意大利的争斗为止。

《拉丁与条顿诸民族史》之所以闻名，主要在于其序言中的这样一段话：

历史向来被赋予评判过去、为后世利益而教诲的职责。本书不敢奢望承担如此崇高的使命；它只想表明实际发生的史事[wie es eigentlich gewesen]究竟如何。 （《拉丁与条顿诸民族史》，第vii页）

兰克研究过去要“wie es eigentlich gewesen”（实际发生的史事究竟如何）这一目标的意义，在史学家中引发了诸多争论。不少学者将该短语译为“what actually happened”（实际发生了什么），并将其理解为对“无色”史学的认同。他们认为，史学家应当恪守事实，其著作中不应显露自己的观点与立场；唯有抹去自身的一切痕迹，他们才能“如实地”重现过去。

兰克著作中的某些内容确实支持这种解读。例如，在《论近代史家的批判》一文中，他主张“对事实进行严格的呈现，即便这些事实可能琐碎且不吸引人”（《史家的技艺》，载《世界史的秘密》第58页）；在《十七世纪英国史》中，他感叹道：“我但愿能消灭自我，只让对象发言”（英译本《十七世纪英国史》第303页）。然而，像伊格尔斯这样的评论者则认为，这种解读并不准确，因为它没有顾及兰克那种“观念论的”历史观。伊格尔斯更倾向于将该短语译为“[历史]仅想表明事情在本质上究竟是如何发生的。“⁴ 也就是说，史学家必须努力提供不带个人观点的事实性陈述，但同时也要超越事实，探寻赋予个人或制度以特性的普遍趋势或主导理念。兰克称，史学家试图揭示”神圣的象形文字“，即上帝在世间的显现。因此，历史不止于事实；史学家既要有“对特殊性的喜悦”，也要有“对普遍性的眼光”。⁵ 在《拉丁与条顿诸民族史》的附录中，兰克还指出，若不借助原始证据（与事件同时代的证据），就不可能写出可靠的历史。

《民族史》出版后，兰克被任命为柏林大学教授。当时柏林人文学界意见严重分歧：一派赞同黑格尔，认为历史是普遍自由的故事；另一派则随萨维尼强调历史中经验的个体性与多样性。兰克站在萨维尼一边，反对黑格尔将一种超越具体历史事实和事件、独立于其上的历史观加以设定。他认为，普遍性和神圣的理念依赖于人们的具体经验才能得以实现。在柏林图书馆，兰克发现了十六、十七世纪威尼斯使节的报告，共四十七卷，这成为他后来多部著作的基础。原始材料对兰克至关重要。正如他后来所写：

我看到这样一个时代正在临近：我们不再依据同时代史家的记述（除非他们拥有亲身、直接的事实知识）来撰写近代史，更不依据那些更远离原始材料的著作；而是要依据目击者的叙述以及真实原始的文献。 （《德国宗教改革史》第一卷，第x页）

1831年，普鲁士外交大臣伯恩斯托夫伯爵委托兰克编辑一份新期刊：《历史政治杂志》。这份期刊被寄望于抵御1830年法国和比利时革命后在德国兴起的自由派政治思想。兰克未能招揽到多少撰稿人或读者，因此在该刊短暂发行的四期（1833—1836年）中，他不得不亲自撰写其中多篇文章。从其中一些文章中，我们可以更清楚地感受到他的“观念论”。例如，在《政治对话》（1836年）和《大国》（1833年）中，他主张每个国家都受某种特定的精神与道德理念所塑造，而这种理念源于上帝。兰克告诉我们，个人应当为实现其国家核心的理念而努力。因此，在他看来，法国的革命思想和活动不应在德国受到鼓励。相反，每个国家都应“为自保之目的而组织其一切内部资源”。⁶ 这首先意味着保护国家免受外来思想的侵扰。在这些著述中，兰克尤其接近黑格尔的思想。两人都主张国家是理念的体现，且不受外在道德原则的约束。这种观点的问题如今显而易见：如果国家不能从外部加以评判，那么它们就可能诉诸极端手段，甚至暴力，以“保护”自己免受其他国家的侵害。二十世纪，不少作家批评兰克及其追随者，认为他们使德国易于陷入极权主义。⁷

在编写《历史政治杂志》期间，兰克撰写了《十六、十七世纪的罗马教皇、其教会及其国家》（1834—1836年，英译本作《教皇史，及其教会与国家》）。尽管作为新教徒，他被禁止查阅教皇档案，但他仍根据自己在威尼斯和罗马看到的私人手稿，描绘了十六世纪上半叶罗马及教会的兴起。尽管一些新教徒认为该著作过于公允，而教廷则斥之为敌对之作，但兰克将天主教会作为一个历史现象来描述，并阐述反宗教改革（他创用的术语）中宗教与世俗议题的相互作用，以及对教皇保罗四世、庇护五世和伊格纳修斯·罗耀拉的生动画像，因而广受赞誉。

接着，他将注意力转向了一个互补的主题，撰写了《德国宗教改革时代史》（1845—1847年，英译本作《德国宗教改革史》）。兰克依据法兰克福使节在宗教改革期间呈送德国帝国议会的九十六卷报告，阐述了政治权谋与冲突如何决定了德国宗教改革的结局。该著作是对该时期的第一部学术性研究，并很快成为一部民族经典。

1841年，普鲁士国王弗里德里希·威廉四世任命兰克为皇家史官。此后，他撰写了一部普鲁士史（《普鲁士史九卷》，1849年，英译本作《勃兰登堡家族史及十七、十八世纪普鲁士史》，1949年，后扩充为十二卷），涵盖了从中世纪末期到腓特烈大帝时代的霍亨索伦王朝历史。兰克以保守的笔触将普鲁士描绘为一个典范性的地方性邦国，而非德国统一的关键参与者，这一点受到许多学者的批评。⁸ 1852年至1868年间，他旨在描绘“那些对人类发展产生最有力影响的时代”，通过这些时代，特定民族获得了“世界历史性”的特征。⁹ 兰克在一系列为巴伐利亚的马克西米利安·约瑟夫（后为马克西米利安·约瑟夫国王）所作的讲座中，进一步阐述了他对时代的看法。在这些讲座中，兰克主张每个时代都是独特的，必须依据其自身的条件来加以研究，而不能通过当下的思维方式或作为后一个时代的铺垫来评判。与赫尔德、黑格尔等学者不同，兰克不相信存在某种普遍的指导意志，引导人类从一点向另一点发展，也不相信有某种精神的进程推动人类走向某个确定的目标。在上帝面前，所有时代都是平等的，在史学家面前也应如此。史学家可以在各个时代中洞悉“主导理念”，但历史并不能证明存在普遍的进步或发展。

1871年，兰克从柏林大学退休，将精力投入到收集和编纂自己的全集上。他同时继续研究德国史，出版并编辑了关于阿尔布雷希特·华伦斯坦、1791—1792年革命战争、普鲁士政治家哈登贝格以及威廉四世与克里斯蒂安·本森通信等主题的著作。尽管视力日渐衰退，他于1880年开始撰写一部他声称将涵盖全人类的世界史。在助手的帮助下，他每年出版一卷他的“世界史”，从古埃及和希伯来文明一直叙述到十二世纪奥托去世（共六卷），直至他于1886年5月23日去世。他的学生阿尔弗雷德·多夫利用兰克及其学生的讲义，将叙述续写至1453年——即兰克开始出版其近代史著作的起点。虽然这部作品理想上应涵盖人类生活从初始至今的一切，但兰克因缺乏证据而排除了史前史和“原始”民族（几乎包括所有欧洲以外的人）（见《世界史》）。

兰克的批判方法成为十九世纪德国及世界范围内历史研究的典范。尽管人们对其思想颇感兴趣，但真正理解他的人却很少。英国和美国的历史学家抓住他关于史学家必须研究“过去实际发生的样子”、坚持“对事实的严格呈现”并“消灭”自我的论述，尊奉他为受过“科学”训练的历史学家的楷模。¹⁰ 然而到世纪之交，这种尊崇转为尖锐的批评。美国、法国和德国的许多史学家呼吁摆脱兰克式以事实为导向的政治史和宗教史，转向更广阔的历史视野。菲茨西蒙斯指出，他日益“因其所写、对其所写的误用以及他所未写的内容而受到指责”。¹¹ 在二十世纪下半叶，“兰克式”成了过时、幼稚、枯燥无味史学的代名词。近年来的研究——部分得益于此前未刊手稿的出版——表明这一看法是多么不公。学者们现在认为，兰克是一位有色彩的史学家，因为他既追寻事实，也追寻理念。

兰克主要著作

《十六、十七世纪的奥斯曼帝国与西班牙君主国》，W. K. 凯利译，伦敦：惠特克出版社，1843年。
《教皇史，及其教会与国家》，E. 福斯特译，伦敦：惠特克出版社，1845年。
《全集》，54卷，莱比锡：邓克尔与洪堡出版社，1867—1890年。
《十七世纪英国史》，G. W. 基钦和C. W. 博斯译，牛津：牛津大学出版社，1875年。
《世界史：第一卷 最古老的历史民族群体与希腊人》，G. W. 普罗瑟罗译，伦敦，1884年。
《拉丁与条顿诸民族史，1494—1514》，G. R. 丹尼斯译，伦敦：G. 贝尔出版社，1915年。
《德国宗教改革史》，S. 奥斯汀译，R. A. 约翰逊编，纽约：E. P. 达顿出版社，1966年。
《勃兰登堡家族史及十七、十八世纪普鲁士史》，A. 达夫·戈登爵士及夫人译，纽约：哈斯克尔出版社，1969年。
《十六、十七世纪法国内战与君主制：法国史》，M. A. 加维译，纽约：哈珀兄弟出版社，1973年。
《历史的理论与实践》，G. G. 伊格尔斯和K. 冯·毛尔克编译，印第安纳州印第安纳波利斯：博布斯-梅里尔公司，1973年。
《世界史的秘密：历史艺术与科学论著选》，J. 瓦恩斯编译，纽约：福特汉姆大学出版社，1981年。

另见：狄尔泰、黑格尔、特纳

进一步资源

布劳，J. D.，“视觉即修正：兰克与现代史学的开端”，《历史与理论》，2007年，第46卷（4）：45—60。
埃斯基尔森，K. R.，“利奥波德·兰克的档案转向：现代史学中的地点与证据”，《现代思想史》，2008年，第5卷（3）：425—453。
伊格尔斯，G. G.，与鲍威尔，J. M.（编），《利奥波德·冯·兰克与历史学科的塑造》，纽约州锡拉丘兹：锡拉丘兹大学出版社，1990年。
克里格，L.，《兰克：历史的意义》，伊利诺伊州芝加哥：芝加哥大学出版社，1977年。
毛雷尔，K.，“利奥波德·冯·兰克史学中的文学现实主义修辞”，《克丽奥》，2006年，第35卷（3）：309—329。

英文原文

Ranke is the representative of the age which instituted the modern study of history. He taught it to be critical, to be colourless, and to be new. We meet him at every step, and he has done more for us than any other man.¹²

So wrote Lord Acton of Leopold von Ranke, a nineteenth-century German historian of the modern world. These days, calling someone ‘colourless’ is far from a compliment. In Acton’s day, however, ‘colourlessness’ – hiding one’s views and sticking to the facts – was something to which one aspired. Ranke, as Acton suggests, did teach history to be new and critical: he encouraged historians to preserve, organise and critically examine evidence; and many also believed that he showed them how to be colourless. Whether Ranke was himself colourless, however, is questionable.

Leopold Ranke was born in Wiehe, Germany in 1795. Ranke’s early education at home and at the renowned Gymnasium of Schulpforta fostered in him Lutheran pietism and a love of classical languages. In 1814 he enrolled at the University of Leipzig, and there he became acquainted with the ideas of J. G. Fichte, Friedrich Schlegel, Goethe, Friedrich Schelling, Kant, Thucydides, Livy, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Barthold Georg Niebuhr. As he later recalled, however, he did not read many works of modern history because in them he ‘saw only an immense number of facts, whose arid incomprehensibility scared [him]’.¹³ In 1817, he was appointed teacher of classics at Friedrichsgymnasium in the Prussian town of Frankfurt an der Oder. While there (1817–25), Ranke began to take more of an interest in modern history. This was prompted by the combination of his quest to seek the signature of God in humanity and his ambition to make an impression on the new field of professional historical studies.¹⁴

Out of his interest in modern history arose his first book, Geschichte der romanischen und germanischen Völker von 1494 bis 1514 (1824, trans. as History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations, 1494 to 1514, hereafter History). In the introduction, Ranke tries to demonstrate the unity of the six nations formed in the Carolingian Empire (the Latin nations of France, Italy and Spain and the Teutonic nations of Germany, England and Scandinavia) through the three medieval ‘respirations’ of the great migration (Völkerwanderung), the Crusades and colonisation. In these developments, he claims, ‘one can almost perceive the unity of a single, closed event’ which produces a shared history that ‘binds nations in a closer unity’ (History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations, preface). In the main text, however, Ranke explores developments in each of the six nations separately until they become embroiled in a struggle in Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations is known chiefly for the statement that

History has had assigned to it the office of judging the past and of instructing the account for the benefit of future ages. To show high offices the present work does not presume; it seeks only to show what actually happened [wie es eigentlich gewesen]. (History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations, p. vii)

The meaning of Ranke’s aim to study the past ‘wie es eigentlich gewesen’ has been subject to much debate among historians. A number of writers have translated the phrase as ‘what actually happened’ and take it to be an endorsement of ‘colourless’ history. Historians, they claim, should stick to the facts. There should be no evidence of their views and commitments in their writings. It is only when they remove all trace of themselves that they can revive the past ‘as it really was’. Some elements of Ranke’s writings support such a reading of this phrase. In ‘Zur Kritik neuerer Geschichtsschreiber’, for instance, he argues for a ‘strict presentation of the facts, contingent and unattractive though they may be’ (‘The Historian’s Craft’, in The Secret of World History, p. 58), and in Englische Geschichte vornehmlich im siebzehnten Jahrhundert he laments ‘I wish I could annihilate my own self and only the objects would speak’ (trans. as A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, p. 303). Commentators such as Iggers, however, have argued that such a reading of Ranke is not accurate because it pays no heed to his ‘idealistic’ conception of history. Iggers prefers to translate the phrase ‘wie es eigentlich gewesen’ as ‘[History] merely wants to show how, essentially, things happened.’¹⁵ That is, historians must try to offer a factual representation of the past devoid of their views, but they must also go beyond the facts and seek the general tendencies or leading ideas which gave an individual or institution its character. Historians, Ranke claims, try to unveil the ‘holy hieroglyph’ that is God’s presence in the world. So history is more than just facts; the historian has a ‘joy in the particular’ but also an ‘eye for the universal’.¹⁶ In the appendix of History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations, Ranke also argues that it is impossible to write sound history without recourse to primary evidence (evidence contemporary with an event).

Upon publication of the History, Ranke was appointed to a professorship at the University of Berlin. Opinion in the humanities at Berlin was sharply divided between those who agreed with Hegel that history was the story of universal freedom and those who stressed with Savigny the individuality and variety of experiences in history. Ranke sided with Savigny, and objected to Hegel’s positing of a view of history above and independent of concrete historical facts and events. He believed that universal and divine ideas were dependent upon people’s concrete experiences for their realisation. In the library at Berlin Ranke discovered forty-seven volumes of reports by Venetian ambassadors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which formed the basis of a number of his future works. Primary materials were very important to Ranke. As he later wrote,

I see the time approaching when we shall base modern history no longer on the reports even of contemporary historians, except insofar as they were in possession of personal and immediate knowledge of facts; and still less on work yet more remote from the source; but rather on the narratives of eyewitnesses, and on genuine and original documents. (History of the Reformation in Germany, I: x)

In 1831, the Prussian Foreign Minister, Count Bernstorff, asked Ranke to edit a new journal: the Historisch-Politische Zeitschrift. This journal, it was hoped, would counter the liberal political ideas that arose in Germany after the French and Belgian revolutions of 1830. Ranke was unable to enlist many writers or readers, and he had to write a number of the articles that appeared in its short run of four issues (1833–6). In some of these we get a clearer impression of his ‘idealism’. In ‘Dialogue on Politics’ (1836) and ‘The Great Powers’ (1833), for instance, he argues that each state is shaped by a particular spiritual and moral idea which derives from God. Individuals, Ranke tells us, should work to realise the idea that lies at the heart of their state. Thus in his opinion French revolutionary ideas and activities should not be encouraged in Germany. Rather, each state should ‘organise all its internal resources for the purpose of self preservation’.¹⁷ This means, above all, protecting the state from outside ideas. In these writings, Ranke stands particularly close to the ideas of Hegel. Both claimed that the state was the manifestation of an idea and that it was not subject to external moral principles. The problems of such a view are now evident: if states cannot be judged from the outside, then they may resort to extreme measures, even violence, to ‘protect’ themselves from other states. In the twentieth century, a number of writers criticised Ranke and his followers for leaving Germany susceptible to totalitarianism.¹⁸

While working on the Historisch-Politische Zeitschrift, Ranke wrote Die römischen Päpste, ihre Kirche and ihr Staat im sechzehnten und siebzehnten Jahrhundert (1834–6, trans. as History of the Popes, their Church and State). Though as a Protestant he was barred from consulting papal archives, he managed to describe the rise of Rome, and the church in the first half of the sixteenth century, on the basis of private manuscripts that he had seen in Venice and Rome. While some Protestants thought that the work was too impartial, and the papacy condemned it as hostile, Ranke was widely praised for his description of the Catholic church as a historical phenomenon and of the interplay of religious and secular issues in the Counter Reformation (a term he coined), and vivid portraits of Popes Paul IV, Pius V and Ignatius Loyola.

He next turned his attention to a complementary subject, writing Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation (1845–7, trans. as History of the Reformation in Germany). Ranke drew on ninety-six volumes of reports by the Frankfurt ambassadors to the German Imperial Diet during the Reformation to develop his account of how political intrigues and conflicts determined the outcome of religious reform in Germany. The work was the first scholarly treatment of that period and soon became a national classic.

After he was appointed to the position of Royal Historiographer by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia in 1841, Ranke penned a history of Prussia (Neun Bücher preussischer Geschichte, 1849, trans. as Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg and History of Prussia during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, 1949, later expanded to twelve volumes) covering the history of the Hohenzollern monarchy from the late Middle Ages through to the age of Frederick the Great. Ranke’s conservative depiction of Prussia as an exemplary provincial territorial state rather than as a key participant in German unity was criticised by many writers.¹⁹ Between 1852 and 1868 he aimed to portray ‘those epochs which have had the most effectual influence on the development of mankind’ and through which particular nations acquired a ‘world historical character’.²⁰ Ranke expanded his views on epochs in a series of lectures that he gave to Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria (later King Maximilian Joseph). In these lectures, Ranke argues that each era is unique and must be studied on its own terms, rather than through present ways of thinking or as a stepping stone to a subsequent era. Unlike writers such as Herder and Hegel, Ranke does not believe that there is a general directing will that guides the development of the human race from one point to another, or a progression of the spirit which drives humanity towards a defined goal. All eras are equal to God, and they must be so to the historian. The historian can divine ‘leading ideas’ within individual eras, but history does not evidence general progress or development.

Ranke retired from the University of Berlin in 1871 and devoted his energies to collecting and editing his complete works. He also continued his research on German history, publishing and editing works on such topics as Albrecht Wallenstein, the revolutionary wars of 1791–2, Prussian statesman Hardenberg and the correspondence of Wilhelm IV with Christian Bunsen. Despite failing eyesight he began work in 1880 on what he claimed would be a universal history of mankind. With the help of assistants, he published a volume a year of his ‘universal history’, tracing events from the ancient Egyptian and Hebrew civilisations down to the death of Otto in the twelfth century (six volumes), before his death on 23 May 1886. His student, Alfred Dove, used Ranke’s lecture notes and those of his students to bring the account up to 1453, at which point his publications on modern history commenced. Though this work ideally should have included everything in human life from its very beginnings, Ranke excluded prehistory and ‘primitive’ people (just about everyone outside Europe) because of a lack of evidence (see Universal History).

Ranke’s critical method became the model of historical research in the nineteenth century in Germany and the wider world. Despite the interest in his ideas, however, he was little understood. British and American historians seized on his comments that historians must study ‘the past as it actually was’, stick to ‘the strict presentation of facts’ and ‘extinguish’ themselves, and revered him as the exemplar of a ‘scientifically’ trained historian.²¹ By the turn of the century, however, reverence turned to scathing criticism. Many historians in the United States, France and Germany called for a turn away from Rankean fact-orientated political and religious history and towards a broader vision of history. Increasingly, Fitzsimons notes, he was ‘blamed for what he wrote, the misuse of what he wrote and for what he did not write at all’.²² In the latter part of the twentieth century, ‘Rankean’ became shorthand for outdated, naïve, dry-as-dust histories. Recent scholarship, stimulated in part by the publication of a number of previously unpublished manuscripts, has shown how unfair that view is. Ranke, scholars now claim, was a colourful historian because he sought facts as well as ideas.

Ranke’s major works

The Ottoman and Spanish Monarchies in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, trans. W. K. Kelly, London: Whittaker, 1843.
History of the Popes, their Church and State, trans. E. Foster, London: Whittaker, 1845.
Sämmtliche Werke, 54 vols, Leipzig: Dunker & Humboldt, 1867–90.
History of England principally in the Seventeenth Century, trans. G. W. Kitchin and C. W. Boase, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1875.
Universal History: I. The Oldest Historical Group of Nations and the Greeks, trans. G. W. Prothero, London, 1884.
History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations, 1494–1514, trans. G. R. Dennis, London: G. Bell, 1915.
History of the Reformation in Germany, trans. S. Austin, ed. R. A. Johnson, New York: E. P. Dutton, 1966.
Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg and History of Prussia during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, trans. Sir A. and Lady Duff Gordon, New York: Haskell House, 1969.
Civil Wars and Monarchy in France in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: a History of France, trans. M. A. Garvey, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1973.
The Theory and Practice of History, trans. and ed. G. G. Iggers and K. von Moltke, Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973.
The Secret of World History: Selected Writings on the Art and Science of History, trans. and ed. J. Wines, New York: Fordham University Press, 1981.

See also: Dilthey, Hegel, Turner

Further resources

Braw, J. D., ‘Vision as Revision: Ranke and the Beginning of Modern History’, History and Theory, 2007, 46(4): 45–60.
Eskildsen, K. R., ‘Leopold Ranke’s Archival Turn: Location and Evidence in Modern Historiography’, Modern Intellectual History, 2008, 5(3): 425–53.
Iggers, G. G., and Powell, J. M. (eds) Leopold von Ranke and the Shaping of the Historical Discipline, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990.
Kreiger, L., Ranke: the Meaning of History, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1977.
Maurer, K., ‘The Rhetoric of Literary Realism in Leopold von Ranke’s Historiography’, Clio, 2006, 35(3): 309–29.