Based on the inductive analysis of the previous chapters of the book, the conclusion provides closing remarks on the nature and meaning of the classic and the canon in history. I argue that the ability of some history classics to transcend time stems from their literariness, as it supports the text’s historicity, which include features shared with the classic in literature such as endurance, timelessness, universal meaningfulness, resistance to historical criticism, susceptibility to multiple interpretations, and ability to function as models. But I introduced other specificities of the historical operation such as the surplus of meaning, historical use of metaphors, effect of contemporaneity, and a certain appropriation of literariness without damaging the pastness of the past. I emphasize two conclusions. First, I hope to have contributed in some measure to demystifying the idea that ‘classic’ and ‘canon’ are two notions that imply normativity, rigidity, traditionalism, uncritical inertia, or cultural supremacism. Second, I hope that this research will contribute to consolidating the field of ‘historical criticism’, or ‘critical analysis of historical texts’, complementary to but distinct from the theory of history and the history of historiography, which has begun to flourish in historiography in recent decades.

This chapter discusses the question of the plurality of historical genres practiced by historians, and their function as a galvanizer of the classics. I proceed first (‘Taxonomies’) by analyzing the theories, definitions, and taxonomies of historical genres developed by ancient scholars such as Cicero and Dionysius to the modern taxonomical project by twentieth century scholars. In the second section (‘Developments’), I provide a brief history of the development of historical genres over time, focusing especially on the moment of their emergence, from ancient and medieval ethnographies, biographies, genealogies, and chronicles to modern monographs and papers. In the last section (‘Reappraisals’), I combine the premodern and modern approaches described in the first two sections, assuming postmodern theories to apply them to the discernment of the classic and the canon in history/historiography. To conclude, I propose an ethical purpose that make historians more attentive to the new developments and possibilities of historical genres, to better adapt the historical form to its content, making it compatible with respect and appreciation for the classics of the discipline. A more comprehensive and flexible approach to historical genres may facilitate the task of those who envisage a more creative and innovative historical writing and production.

This chapter focuses on some specific features of the historical classic, offering a series of reflections to expand a debate on this complex topic. Based on some examples of the Western historiographical tradition, I discuss to what extent historians should engage the concept of the classic, as has been done for literary and artworks. I will argue that it is possible to identify a category of the classic text in historical writing. Because of their narrative condition, historical texts share some of the features assigned to literary texts such as durability, timelessness, universal meaningfulness, resistance to historical criticism, susceptibility to multiple interpretations, and ability to function as models. Yet, since historical texts do not construct imaginary worlds but try to achieve some realities external to the text, they also have to attain some specific features according to this referential content, such as the surplus of meaning, historical use of metaphors, effect of contemporaneity, and a certain appropriation of ‘literariness’.

Arguing its relevance in historiography, and its connection with the related concept of the classic, this chapter examines the place of the canon in history: its formation, key turning points, convenience, usefulness, and the desirability of its existence itself. In the first part of the chapter (‘Constructions’), I examine the five main turning points in the formation of the canon in history: Greco-Roman, Collingwood-Croce, narrative history of the 1970s, gender and postcolonial, and global canon. The second part of the chapter (‘Canonizing’) examines three case studies of the canon in history: Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Macaulay’s History of England and White’s Metahistory. The third part (‘Resistances’) explores the rejection of the canon among historians, describes some of its manifestations and reflects on its motivations. The fourth part (‘Paradoxes’) details the main characteristics of the historical canon, points out the differences among other canons such as the literary and artistic, and explores the peculiar combination of art and science that every historical operation entails. The conclusive section (‘Inescapability’) argues for the great paradox of the canon: the impossibility of conducting cultural and intellectual exchanges without it.

The introduction of the book provides the heuristic, analytical, and methodological keys for the interpretation of the concepts of the classic and the canon in historiography. It details the interdisciplinary approach that has made this study possible, blending literary criticism, the critical analysis of historical texts, the theory of history, the history of historiography, hermeneutic philosophy, sociology, and biblical studies. It exposes the difficulties presented by the analysis of historiographical categories such as the classic and the canon, which privilege stability over instability and permanence over change. Finally, it lists the main primary sources used and synthesizes the content of each of the five chapters of the book, each of them dedicated to the main concepts analyzed: durability, classic, canon, genre, and genealogy.

For much of history, from the dawn of Greek historiography to the postmodern 1970s, genealogy has been synonymous with continuity of origins and blood identity, and therefore closely connected with the concepts of the classic and the canon. Yet, during the last half century, specially thanks to the Nietzschean and Foucauldian philosophical deployment, it has shed its narrative garb to become an agent of discontinuity, and thus the nemesis of the classic and the canon. Many scholars have analyzed the modern development of genealogies after Nietzsche’s alleged foundational statement and its Foucauldian reception. But none of them has provided a systematic history of the trajectory of this concept, from antiquity to the present. This chapter attempts to fill this gap by providing a history of the concept of genealogy and its associated ideas, delving specifically into its historiographical uses, and connecting it to the four previous concepts discussed in the book. I will, specifically, emphasize its polysemy, try to locate what has remained and what has changed in this long trajectory, and explain the (only recently) radically opposed nature (nemesis) between the concepts of genealogy and canon – and the implications that this opposition brings to historiography.

This article interrogates the idea of a classic, locating its significance in sociology in terms of its understanding in far-ranging fields of human inquiry and exploration, particularly philosophy, art, and literature. It explores the question: Why do “classics” remain important whenever social scientists, novices or veterans, reconsider their discipline’s history and likely future?

Alan Sica is a Professor of Sociology at Pennsylvania State University, where he is the Founder and Director of the Social Thought Program. He has served as Editor of Contemporary Sociology and Chair of the American Sociological Association’s Theory Section. He is the recipient of the ASA’s History of Sociology Section’s Distinguished Achievement Award. His books include Weber, Irrationality, and Social Order (1988), What Is Social Theory? The Philosophical Debates (1998), and The Disobedient Generation: Social Theorists in the Sixties (2005).

Few issues are more central to understanding an ancient people than how they were organised politically, a topic that touches on virtually every aspect of their social, cultural, and economic life. Configurations of power are the critical frameworks within which identities, relationships, and events are formed, understood, and function both within communities and in their interactions with others. This was no less true for the ancient Maya, who occupied the Yucatan Peninsula and adjacent highlands to the south, an area now divided between the nations of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and the western extremities of Honduras and El Salvador (Map 1; see also Maps 2–4) – today home to millions of their descendants.