Religion and the rise of historicism

"This book offers an interpretation of the rise of secular historical thought in nineteenth-century Europe. Instead of characterizing "historicism" and "secularization" as fundamental breaks with Europe's religious heritage, they are presented as complex cultural permutations with much continuity; for inherited theological patterns of interpreting experience determined to a large degree the conditions, possibilities, and limitations of the forms of historical imagination realizable by nineteenth-century secular intellectuals."--BOOK JACKET. "This point is made by examining the thought of the German theologian W.M.L. de Wette (1780-1849) and that of the Swiss-German historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897)."--Jacket.