Niebuhr, Barthold Georg (bär`tôlt gā`ôrkh nē`b
r), 1776–1831, German historian, b. Copenhagen; son of Karsten Niebuhr Niebuhr, Karsten (kär`stən nē`b
..... Click the link for more information. . He served in the Danish and, after 1806, in the Prussian civil service, took part in the foundation of the Univ. of Berlin, and was (1816–23) Prussian ambassador to the Holy See. From 1823 to his death he taught at the Univ. of Bonn. Niebuhr's history of Rome (3 vol., 1811–32; tr. 3 vol., 1828–42) may be said to have inaugurated modern scientific historical method. Niebuhr related individual events to the political and social institutions of ancient Rome; he sought to recreate the past in terms understandable to the modern reader. An admirer of the Roman republic, he favored agrarianism as the basis of a well-balanced state. He regarded Prussia as a modern parallel of the Roman state and advocated Prussian leadership in the unification of Germany. His liberalism was antirevolutionary, and he was sympathetic to reforms instituted from above.
r), 1776–1831, German historian, b. Copenhagen; son of Karsten Niebuhr Niebuhr, Karsten (kär`stən nē`b..... Click the link for more information. . He served in the Danish and, after 1806, in the Prussian civil service, took part in the foundation of the Univ. of Berlin, and was (1816–23) Prussian ambassador to the Holy See. From 1823 to his death he taught at the Univ. of Bonn. Niebuhr's history of Rome (3 vol., 1811–32; tr. 3 vol., 1828–42) may be said to have inaugurated modern scientific historical method. Niebuhr related individual events to the political and social institutions of ancient Rome; he sought to recreate the past in terms understandable to the modern reader. An admirer of the Roman republic, he favored agrarianism as the basis of a well-balanced state. He regarded Prussia as a modern parallel of the Roman state and advocated Prussian leadership in the unification of Germany. His liberalism was antirevolutionary, and he was sympathetic to reforms instituted from above.
Bibliography
See his translated Collected Lectures (8 vol., 1852–53); A. Guilland, Modern Germany and Her Historians (tr. 1915, repr. 1970).
Niebuhr, Barthold Georg
(born Aug. 27, 1776, Copenhagen, Den.—died Jan. 31, 1831, Bonn, Prussia) German historian. Niebuhr held posts in state service in Denmark and Prussia before resigning to become state historiographer. In 1810 he began a series of lectures at the University of Berlin that were the basis of his great work, the enormously influential History of Rome (1811–32). In it he introduced skepticism to historical scholarship, showing how to analyze historical sources, discard worthless material, and lay bare elements from which historical facts could be reconstructed, and thereby initiating a new era in historiography.
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