German historian Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886) is well known for pioneering the modern historical method which advocates empiricism, rather than a focus on the philosophy of history. Emphasising the importance of presenting history exactly as it happened, Ranke asserted that different eras need to be understood in their own contexts rather than in relation to each other: history should not be regarded as one long, teleological narrative. These principles of writing history, established in earlier publications, are all evident here. Originally published in eight volumes between 1859 and 1869, Ranke's history, 'principally in the seventeenth century', was first published in English as a six-volume history by the Clarendon Press in 1875, the mammoth task of its translation distributed among eight Oxford dons. Volume 1 prefigures the events of the seventeenth century: starting with the early Britons, Ranke summarises English history up to the early years of Charles I.
