The interest in conceptual history and historical semantics remains unbroken. This compendium undertakes a comprehensive reconstruction of the contributions and debates that have often been treated in isolation in philosophy, historiography, social sciences, linguistics, history of science, and cultural studies. It provides theoretical and historical orientations and opens up new interdisciplinary dimensions and questions for research practice. Conceptual history and historical semantics are by no means, as it may initially seem, neutral, purely technical methods. Throughout their history, they have been utilized for various and sometimes opposing functions. Among the surprising findings is that while many of their approaches have promoted historical thinking, they have often shied away from the consequences of their own methods.