"Received history"?

Miscellaneous History
1

I’m attempting a translation of “The Democratic Leviathan” by Hoppe. In it, he uses the term “received history”, which I’m finding difficult to find a definition of. Does anyone have an idea of exactly what it is?

Here are my leads so far:

  • The same term is used in an academic publication about the Holocaust. I’ve skimmed through it but can’t discern what they actually mean.
  • Hoppe places the term in quotation marks - is it perhaps a direct translation from a German expression?

Does anyone here have a clue?

/Christian

2

its a derivation from the idiom ‘received wisdom’ which you will find a lot more written about.

its pretty much ‘mainstream history’, or ‘the history the average person is taught at school’

3

It’s the generally believed and taught account of history.

You “receive” it when you’re young (in schools, media, etc).

4

I don’t have a better answer than theirs. It seems right, but you never know. You should just contact Hoppe and ask. What language are you translating to?

5

“Received” used to mean “accepted” or something like that:

When used in that sense to modify something like “opinion”, “doctrine”, “history”, or whatever, it means something like the “commonly accepted” whatever:

So, when Hoppe says “received history”, he means something like “commonly accepted account of history”. He placed it in quotes probably because it is an uncommon, and old, way to express it.

6

Ah, thanks all. Much clearer now :slight_smile: