In his other writings Taine is known for his attempt to provide a scientific account of literature, a project that has led him to be linked to sociological positivists, although there were important differences. In his view, the work of literature was the product of the author's environment, and an analysis of that environment could yield a perfect understanding of that work; this stands in contrast with the view that the work of literature is the spontaneous creation of genius. Taine based his analysis on the categories of what in English would be translated today as "nation", "environment" or "situation", and "time". Armin Koller has written that in this Taine drew heavily from the philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, although this has been insufficiently recognised, while the Spanish writer Emilia Pardo Bazán has suggested that a crucial predecessor to Taine's idea was Germaine de Staël’s work on the relationship between art and society. Nationalist literary movements and post-modern critics alike have made use of Taine’s concepts, the former to argue for their unique and distinct place in literature and the latter to deconstruct the texts with regards to the relationship between literature and social history.