How did Benedetto Croce's ideas about history change later in his career?

Benedetto Croce’s approach to history evolved from a highly structured, systematic framework toward a more fluid, asystematic perspective known as "absolute historicism."

In the earlier phase of his "philosophy of the spirit," Croce developed a rigid system based on the circularity of the spirit, which categorized human experience into distinct theoretical (aesthetic and logical) and practical (economic and ethical) moments. This period is documented in works such as History: Its Theory and Practice (1917).

Later in his career, Croce gradually abandoned this formal schematism in response to historical and methodological considerations. He moved toward a view where these "moments" are not dissolved but are instead concretized into the continuous flow of historical action and thought. In this later stage, history became the unique mediational principle for all aspects of the spirit, which he viewed as completely spontaneous and lacking a predetermined structure. This shift is signaled by his 1938 work, History As the Story of Liberty, which he identified as the definitive form of his thought.