西方史学史研究的学术转向，使得该领域迫切需要引入新的研究视角和理论方法。巴里．布赞和阿米塔．阿查亚曾提出“前理论”这一概念，用以指称思想中虽然不构成理论，但是却可能为理论的形成提供起点的内容。这一概念可以启发西方史学史研究者有意识地关注以下四方面内容：其他学科对历史事件和人物的“概念化”问题；历史学家无意识的“理论表述”问题；历史学家所发现的不容于旧有解释框架的“异例”在系统性学术更新中发挥的作用；历史学家在长期学术实践中总结出的理论概念所产生的跨学科影响。构建新的西方史学史叙事，不仅要关注历史学的“内部发展”，也必须重视研究其“对外关系”，即一种包含跨学科知识网络的史学史。它展现了不同知识背景下的学者对相同的“过去”所采取的不同研究视角，以及由此得出的不同结论。这可能会将习惯于“常规智慧”的历史学家逼到不进则退的境地。

The academic turn of history of western historiography makes it urgent to introduce new perspectives and theoretical methods. Barry Buzan and Amitav Acharya have coined the term "pre-theory" to refer to the content of thought that does not constitute a theory, but may provide a starting point for the formation of it. This concept can inspire researchers of history of western historiography to pay attentions to the following four aspects: the " conceptualization" of historical events and characters in other disciplines; the historians' unconscious "theoretical statements"; The roles of the "exceptions"which are found by historians and do not fit the old interpretative frameworks in the systematic academic renewal; the interdisciplinary impact of theoretical concepts developed by historians over a long period of academic practice. To construct a new narrative of history of western historiography, we should not only pay attentions to the "internal development" of historiography, but also pay attentions to its "external relations", that is, a history of historiography that includes interdisciplinary knowledge network. It shows that scholars with different intellectual contexts take different perspectives on the same "past" and draw different conclusions from it. This may push historians accustomed to "conventional wisdom" into a position in which they will forge ahead or fall behind .