Hegel first presented his Philosophy of World History in the winter of 1822/23, as the last discipline, only after the aesthetics and philosophy of religion. The manuscript he prepared for this first course has been lost; extensive fragments only exist for the “Introduction” that he presented in the later courses, especially in the last one (1830/31) (GW 18); the course of 1822/23 is only preserved through lecture transcripts. In his lectures, which also extend to art and religion, Hegel presents the gradual development of spirit, starting from China and India, through Persia and Egypt, to Greece and Rome, and continuing into the “Germanic world,” that is, the world emerging from the Migration Period, up to the present. The edition follows the transcript by Hotho, but it is supplemented by extensive variants from the transcripts by v. Griesheim, Hagenbach, and v. Kehler. The later lectures, as well as the Editorial Report and explanatory notes, will follow in further volumes.
Simon Gros 
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