Lamprecht was born in
Jessen in the
Province of Saxony. As a student, he trained in history, political science, economics, and art at the universities of
Göttingen,
Leipzig, and
Munich. Lamprecht taught at the university in
Marburg and later at
Leipzig, where he founded the
Institut für Kultur und Universalgeschichte center dedicated to comparative world and cultural history. Lamprecht was employee at the successful edition project "The Chronicles of the German Cities" under the leadership of the well-known and highly reputable German historian
Karl von Hegel. Lamprecht studied German and European social and economic history, particularly of the
Middle Ages. He aroused considerable controversy with his loose interdisciplinary methods and focus on broad social, environmental, and even psychological, questions in history. To him, history meant as much the revelation of sociology as of political events. Lamprecht's ambitious
Deutsche Geschichte (13 vols., 1891–1908) on the whole trajectory of German history sparked a famous
Methodenstreit (methodological dispute) within Germany's academic history establishment, especially
Max Weber, who habitually referred to Lamprecht as a mere dilettante. Lamprecht came under criticism from scholars of legal and constitutional history like
Friedrich Meinecke and
Georg von Below for his lack of methodological rigor and inattention to important political trends and ideologies. As a result, Lamprecht and his students were marginalized by German academia, and interdisciplinary social history remained something of a taboo among German historians for much of the twentieth century. However, during the years of the series' publication, his work enjoyed a wide readership among the nonacademic German community. He was the chief exponent of the
Kulturgeschichte (“History of Culture”), and believed intensely in the superiority of German culture. Shortly before his death he repudiated, with some indignation, the conception of Germany's part in
World War I as having been dictated by “war lords,” and avowed that in regard to it that Germany was united. Lamprecht died in
Leipzig on 10 May 1915 from what appears to have been the result of internal bleeding brought on by a perforated ulcer. ==Influence==