In this paper, I explore how Winckelmann, Riegl, Hamann, Spengler, and other authors regarded style as the characteristic form of the historical epochs or cultures they described. I argue that some of the key components of their Epochenstilgeschichte (e.g., the rejection of one continuing history and of the importance of historical reception, or the idea of radical ruptures between epochs and the emphasis on the conformities of the coexistent) can also be found in Foucault's The Order of Things. Resorting to his reception of Lamprecht, Spitzer, and Merleau-Ponty, I furthermore attempt to show how Foucault may have come in contact with the above-mentioned concepts, and how he uses them in his critique of the inherited philosophy of history.