In this book, published posthumously, R. G. Collingwood considers how the modern idea of history has grown up from the time of Herodotus to the present day. To Collingwood, 'history is not contained in books and documents, it lives only as a present interest and pursuit, in the mind of the historian when he criticizes and interprets those documents, and by so doing relives for himself the states of mind into which he inquires'.