Foreword; Part I. Political Thought as History: 1. The history of political thought: a methodological enquiry; 2. Working on ideas in time; 3. Verbalizing a political act: towards a politics of speech; 4. Political ideas as historical events; political philosophers as historical actors; 5. The reconstruction of discourse: towards the historiography of political thought; 6. The concept of a language and the metier d'historien: some considerations on practice; 7.

Texts as events: reflections on the history of political thought; 8. Quentin Skinner: the history of politics and the politics of history; Part II. History as Political Thought: 9. The origins of study of the past: a comparative approach; 10. Time, institutions and action: an essay on traditions and their understanding; 11. The historian as political actor in polity, society and academy; 12. The politics of history: the subaltern and the subversive; 13. The politics of historiography.