Perhaps no other area of ​​development within contemporary historical theory has had such a profound impact on the rest of the social sciences as Conceptual History. Explaining the reasons for this phenomenon would be a study in its own right. Offering important insights into this phenomenon, this edited volume addresses various topics and problems in the wake of Koselleck's work, structured in three parts: the first, which brings together specific analyses of his work, where the theory of history and the formation of modern consciousness occupy the majority of the studies; the second, which includes writings on the "applications" of conceptual history to cases not directly studied by Koselleck, such as emotions and spatial considerations; and a final section focused on the history of Latin America, its modernity, and formulations of the idea of ​​the future in the context of independence movements.

This book possesses the attribute of clarity in its texts, which is evident from Felipe Torres's introductory note, in which he dispels one of the main suspicions that might arise from traditional historiographical practice: that of a certain "purely intellectual" flight by this current, abandoning the material dimensions that should always prevail in any historical phenomenon. But this suspicion would be nothing more than a mere prejudice, or rather a lack of understanding of the concrete procedure of Conceptual History: it is not possible to approach the semantics of a history without clarifying these dimensions, indicating them as "a direct correlate of the material conditions within a given historical framework" (p. 11). But here, correlate doesn't simply mean "expression of," but rather—and perhaps this reveals the degree of complexity that Conceptual History is capable of introducing—the resulting concepts are both products and producers: "product-producer," a proposition that—at least formally—may remind many of certain passages in Marx's work (thesis three of his famous Theses on Feuerbach).

Indeed, the book's various chapters demonstrate how certain historical phenomena are only comprehensible in their true dimension by unveiling the semantic network of concepts that began to make it possible to think about a particular type of experience in all its potential. Key chapters in this perspective include Felipe Torres's own, on the concept of utopia and the modern experience of the acceleration of time, and Alejandro Fielbaum's, on the "future republics" of Latin America. And perhaps here lies the secret seduction of Conceptual History today: that of being a way of approaching - however we can - "the material realizations of the possible future" (p. 195).