"Originally published 1977 by Basil Blackwell Oxford in Great Britain and by Wesleyan University Press in the United States"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

A Piedmontese view of the history of ideas -- The fault of the Greeks -- Eastern elements in post-exilic Jewish, and Greek, historiography -- Athens in the third century B.C. and the discovery of Rome in the histories of Timaeus of Tauromenium -- The historian's skin -- Polybius' reappearance in Western Europe -- Did Fabius Pictor lie? -- Pagan and Christian historiography in the fourth century A.D -- The lonely historian Ammianus Marcellinus -- Popular religious beliefs and the late Roman historians -- Tradition and the classical historian -- Time in ancient historiography -- The first political commentary on Tacitus -- Perizonius, Niebuhr and the character of early Roman tradition -- Vico's Scienza Nuova : Roman 'bestioni' and Roman 'eroi' -- Mabillon's Italian disciplies -- Introduction to the Griechische Kulturgeschichte by Jacob Burckhardt -- J.G. Droysen between Greeks and Jews -- The ancient city of Fustel de Coulanges -- Reconsidering B. Croce (1866-1952) -- Historicism revisited.