The book explores the philosophical and historical underpinnings of the postwar crisis and return of storytelling and shows their relevance for the ongoing debate on the significance of narrative for human existence. It contributes to contemporary narrative studies by developing narrative hermeneutics as a historically sensitive study of the philosophical (ontological, epistemological, ethical, aesthetic) dimensions of different conceptions of narrative and suggests how to tie more intimately narrative theory to the study of narrative in literary history.