In philosophy, historicism is an approach to history that assigns a particular meaning to an event according to that event’s context within the arc of history. In some cases, this results in viewing historical change as a power in and of itself. Historicism can be as extreme as claiming that certain changes are “historically inevitable,” as though history were a force on par with gravity or magnetism. In most cases, however, the term historicism simply refers to a careful interpretation of events with a mind to their cultural, historical, and political contexts.