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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2011
We economic historians can sympathize fully with Professor Gerhard in his search for criteria that will help to cut political history into meaningful periods. Like him, we are fully aware that periodizing seems an artificial intellectual trick in face of the fact that life continues even in the midst of destruction. We would add, “So do human wants and the efforts that have to be made for their satisfaction.”
* This paper was read at a session of the American Historical Association in New York, December 28, 1954, on “Criteria of Periodization in History.” Professor Dietrich Gerhard discussed political history, and Professor Mayer Shapiro dealt with art history.
