Leibniz Research Alliance „Value of the Past“

Toppled monuments and shocking revelations, calls for historical revision and conflicts around restitution, debates about the epochal nature of the Anthropocene or the fundamentals of biodiversity research – all of these share one thing in common: the question of the "value of the past" is assuming an ever greater role in social self-understanding/when it comes to the way in which societies view themselves.

The Leibniz Research Alliance "Value of the Past", launched in September 2021, examines the importance of the past as compared with the present, it refers to the extent to which an era looks to the past for guidance as to its future course, and, as a value system it encompasses the historically rooted core beliefs of a society or of particular groups or milieus.

You can also visit our blog value.past https://valuepast.hypotheses.org/ and follow us on X (@leibniz_values) and Bluesky Social (@valuepast.bsky.social).

The new Leibniz Research Alliance ties in with the work of the Leibniz research group "Historical Authenticity". Its research questions and results are presented in the section "Archive - LFV Historical Authenticity".