In Defense of HistoryA master practitioner gives us an entertaining tour of the historian's workshop and a spirited defense of the search for historical truth. E. H. Carr's What Is History?, a classic introduction to the field, may now give way to a worthy successor. In his compact, intriguing survey, Richard J. Evans shows us how historians manage to extract meaning from the recalcitrant past. To materials that are frustratingly meager, or overwhelmingly profuse, they bring an array of tools that range from agreed-upon rules of documentation and powerful computer models to the skilled investigator's sudden insight, all employed with the aim of reconstructing a verifiable, usable past. Evans defends this commitment to historical knowledge from the attacks of postmodernist critics who see all judgments as subjective. Evans brings "a remarkable range, a nose for the archives, a taste for controversy, and a fluent pen" (The New Republic) to this splendid work. "Essential reading for coming generations."-Keith Thomas |
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... truth, and objectivity and to the colleagues in the History Department at Birkbeck who encouraged me to turn my rough ideas on history and its current predicament into a book. During the many rewntings and reworkings of the text since ...
... truth, and objectivity and to the colleagues in the History Department at Birkbeck who encouraged me to turn my rough ideas on history and its current predicament into a book. During the many rewntings and reworkings of the text since ...
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... truth about the past. It concludes optimistically that historians' efforts in this enterprise more often than not meet with success. Elton, too, was a practicing historian of enormous experience, and in the course of dispensing a good ...
... truth about the past. It concludes optimistically that historians' efforts in this enterprise more often than not meet with success. Elton, too, was a practicing historian of enormous experience, and in the course of dispensing a good ...
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... truth or objectivity — both concepts defended, in different ways, by Carr as well as Elton. The question is now not so much "What Is History?" as "Is It Possible to Do History at All?"The result has been that in place of the optimistic ...
... truth or objectivity — both concepts defended, in different ways, by Carr as well as Elton. The question is now not so much "What Is History?" as "Is It Possible to Do History at All?"The result has been that in place of the optimistic ...
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... truth, the belief in objectivity, and the quest for a scientific approach to the past. David Harlan has even gone so far as to remark that "by the end of the 1980s most historians — even most working historians — had all but given up on ...
... truth, the belief in objectivity, and the quest for a scientific approach to the past. David Harlan has even gone so far as to remark that "by the end of the 1980s most historians — even most working historians — had all but given up on ...
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... had founded the journal in the late 1970s was now "in shreds."24 By the late 1990s, therefore, there can be little doubt that the debate about history, truth, and objectivity unleashed by postmodernism has become Introduction 5.
... had founded the journal in the late 1970s was now "in shreds."24 By the late 1990s, therefore, there can be little doubt that the debate about history, truth, and objectivity unleashed by postmodernism has become Introduction 5.
Contents
13 | |
History Science and Morality | 39 |
Historians and Their Facts | 65 |
Sources and Discourses | 89 |
Causation in History | 111 |
Society and the Individual | 139 |
Knowledge and Power | 165 |
Objectivity and Its Limits | 193 |
Notes | 221 |
Further Reading | 253 |
Index | 273 |
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Common terms and phrases
Abraham American historian American Historical Review Ankersmit Annales school Appleby approach argued argument Arthur Marwick belief Britain British Cambridge Carr's causes claim concept contemporary course critics critique cultural debate declared Deconstructing discipline discourse documents Dominick LaCapra E. H. Carr England English European evidence example Frank Ankersmit French Geoffrey Elton Hayden White historians historical fact historical knowledge historical profession historical research historical scholarship Historiography History and Post-Modernism History London Holocaust denial human Ibid ideas ideology Intellectual History interpretation Journal Joyce Keith Jenkins kind LaCapra language Lawrence Stone linguistic turn literary Marxist material meaning methods modern moral Moreover Munslow Namier narrative Novick objective Oxford past perspective postmodernism postmodernist practice present Purkiss R. G. Collingwood Revolution rians scientific sense Sir Geoffrey Elton Social History social sciences society sources theory things thought tion torians torical tory traditional truth written