Hegel believed that history follows the dictates of reason - in other words, history is fluid, interpretive, and written retrospectively according to how we understand the facts as we see them. Hegel makes history into more of a science than an art; it comprises of researching facts, applying logic to them and putting them together into a well-thought and cognitive narrative of past events and their effects on the present.
Hegel shared this belief in lectures that he gave at the University of Berlin, first in 1822, then in 1828 and finally in 1830. Six years after Hegel's death, publisher Eduard Ganz gathered transcripts of the lectures together and published them in one volume, combining Hegel's own lecture notes with the notes taken by his students at the time. A second German edition followed fairly quickly, this one compiled by Hegel's son, Karl. There was a third version released in 1917, but by then, three years into World War Two, it was more difficult to argue that the conditions the Europeans were living through were in any way the result of logical thinking or reason.
Unusually, there has never been an English translation of the Lectures, although the majority of Hegel's works were eventually translated. The Karl Hegel version was abridged before being translated, but is nonetheless the edition used by English-speaking institutions when teaching Hegel to students.
Hegel achieved great fame in his day - in fact, like many contemporary philosophers was something of a rock star of academia. His philosophies have proven divisive but he is universally respected for his inter-twining of philosophy, idealism and psychology. He was also the primary exponent of the principle of master/slave linguistics and relationships.
Nicknamed "the modern day Aquinas" by philosophy scholar Karl Barth, many claim that Hegel planted the seeds that eventually grew into psychoanalysis, Freudianism and existentialism.
