Every nation develops a narrative structure for thinking about history that is generated by its own historical experience. In this study, the German and Austrian-German "historias"-the way narratives of factual significance are structured as the "story" of events-are shown in their sameness from the late 1600s to the present. This "historia" shapes the emphasis of how meaning is articulated among the historians of a society. The author argues that German and Austrian-German societies would benefit from understanding the constrictions and oversights generated by the narrative style of their traditional historias.