This contribution revisits the origins of the concept of creative destruction by returning to Werner Sombart’s Krieg und Kapitalismus (1913). Although Sombart never used the expression schöpferische Zerstörung, a systematic page-by-page reading shows that he articulated a destruction–creation mechanism that anticipates the structural logic later formalized by Joseph Schumpeter. Sombart presents war as simultaneously destructive and generative, arguing that fiscal, institutional, and ecological ruptures are not peripheral to capitalism but central to its emergence. His analysis of deforestation, scarcity, and technological substitution (especially the transition from wood to coal and coke) offers an early model of how material crises can trigger innovations that reshape production systems and energy regimes. The article also examines the subsequent marginalization of Sombart’s contribution, situating it within the broader methodological and political transformations of twentieth-century economics. It contrasts Sombart’s historically grounded mechanism with the evolution of Schumpeter’s thinking from 1911 to 1942, when the canonical formulation of creative destruction finally emerged. More broadly, the paper reflects on the historical evolution of economic concepts, illustrating how scientific ideas often achieve recognition not through priority of insight alone, but through subsequent reinterpretation, analytical elaboration, and institutionalization. Reassessing Sombart thus enriches the genealogy of creative destruction and sheds new light on contemporary debates surrounding innovation, energy transitions, geopolitical conflict, and artificial intelligence. Building on recent work by Acemoglu, Mokyr, and others, the article argues that Sombart emerges not as the inventor of the term but as the first thinker to articulate its structural logic. More fundamentally, it suggests that the history of creative destruction itself illustrates a broader movement from historical interpretation (Verstehen) toward analytical explanation (Erklären), reminding us that concepts, no less than data, have histories of their own.
