History

In the 20th century, historians began arguing for new ways of doing history. This "new history" movement called for a total history open to exploring every human activity. Instead of concentrating on the great deeds of statesmen and generals, new history considered the views and experiences of ordinary people. Instead of limiting themselves to official documents, new historians examined a greater variety of evidence, collaborating with sociologists, anthropologists, economists, linguists, and psychologists. Instead of traditional narratives, new history examined structures. Instead of claiming objective truth, new history acknowledged the prejudices associated with color, creed, class or gender. In this newly revised and updated edition of The French Historical Revolution, renowned cultural historian Peter Burke provides a critical history of this movement most associated with the French journal Annales, from its foundation in 1929 to the present. From founding historians Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch through the "new history" movement's best-known champions Jacques Le Goff and Fernand Braudel to current practitioners Roger Chartier and Serge Gruzinski, Burke traces and analyzes the contributions of one of the most important historical movements of the last century.

Marc Bloch’un ölümünden sonra ilk defa Lucien Febvre tarafından yayımlanan Tarih Savunusu veya Tarihçilik Mesleği, tarih eğitimi, “tarihçilik mesleği” ya da sadece tarih merakını gidermek açısından okunması gereken bir başyapıt. Annales ekolünün kurucularından Marc Bloch’un “tarihçilik”in mahiyetine dair kaleme aldığı bu eser, tarihin “ne” olduğu üzerine de 20. yüzyılda yazılmış birkaç önemli başlıktan biri olma sıfatını hakkıyla taşıyor. El yazması nüshasından faydalanılarak notlanan ve orijinaline sadık kalınarak yayına hazırlanan bu kitap, Jacques Le Goff’un önsözünün rehberliğinde yolu tarihle kesişen herkes için eşi bulunmaz bir kaynak oluşturuyor.

Who is to say how things really were? In formulating a modern answer to the question 'What is History?' Professor Carr shows that the 'facts' of history are simply those which historians have selected for scrutiny. Millions have crossed the Rubicon, but the historians tell us that only Caesar's crossing was significant. All historical facts come to us as a result of interpretative choices by historians influenced by the standards of their age. Yet if absolute objectivity is impossible, the role of the historian need in no way suffer; nor does history lose its fascination. With lucidity, Carr casts a light on the proper function of the historian and the vital importance of history in modern society.

A Choice Outstanding Academic Book for 1994 ?Burke's study is unique in that it distills many of the previous efforts to address the interface between history and social theory into a concentrated, elegantly written, and thought-provoking analysis of key problems. . . . Excellent, comprehensive index and bibliography. Highly recommended.'--Choice Burke reviews the emergence of the fields of history and social science and traces their tentative convergence in recent decades as he reappraises the current relations between them.

In this book, now published in 10 languages, a preeminent intellectual historian examines the profound changes in ideas about the nature of history and historiography. Georg G. Iggers traces the basic assumptions upon which historical research and writing have been based, and describes how the newly emerging social sciences transformed historiography following World War II. The discipline's greatest challenge may have come in the last two decades, when postmodern ideas forced a reevaluation of the relationship of historians to their subject and questioned the very possibility of objective history. Iggers sees the contemporary discipline as a hybrid, moving away from a classical, macrohistorical approach toward microhistory, cultural history, and the history of everyday life. The new epilogue, by the author, examines the movement away from postmodernism towards new social science approaches that give greater attention to cultural factors and to the problems of globalization.

The British Marxist Historians remains the first and most complete study of the founders of one of the most influential contemporary academic traditions in history and social theory. In this classic text, Kaye looks at Maurice Dobb and the debate on the transition to capitalism; Rodney Hilton on feudalism and the English peasantry; Christopher Hill on the English Revolution; Eric Hobsbawm on workers, peasants and world history; and E.P. Thompson on the making of the English working class. Kaye compares their perspective on history with other approaches, such as that of the French Annales school, and concludes with a discussion of the contribution of the British Marxist historians to the formation of a democratic historical consciousness. The British Marxist Historians is an indispensable book for anyone interested in the intellectual history of the late twentieth century.

This landmark work from a renowned feminist historian is a foundational demonstration of the uses of gender as a conceptual tool for cultural and historical analysis. Joan Wallach Scott offers a trenchant critique of the compartmentalization of women's history, arguing that political and social categories are always fundamentally shaped by gender and that questions of gender are essential to considerations of difference in history. Exploring topics ranging from language and class to the politics of work and family, Gender and the Politics of History is a vital contribution to feminist history and historical methodology that also speaks more broadly to the ongoing redefinition of gender in our political and cultural vocabularies. This anniversary edition of a classic text in feminist theory and history shows the evergreen relevance of Scott's work to the humanities and social sciences. In a new preface, Scott reflects on the book's legacy and implications for contemporary politics as well as what she has reconsidered as a result of her engagement with psychoanalytic theory. The book also includes a previously unpublished essay, "The Conundrum of Equality," which takes up the question of affirmative action.

Across the humanities and the social sciences, disciplinary boundaries have come into question as scholars have acknowledged their common preoccupations with cultural phenomena ranging from rituals and ceremonies to texts and discourse. Literary critics, for example, have turned to history for a deepening of their notion of cultural products; some of them now read historical documents in the same way that they previously read "great" texts. Anthropologists have turned to the history of their own discipline in order to better understand the ways in which disciplinary authority was constructed. As historians have begun to participate in this ferment, they have moved away from their earlier focus on social theoretical models of historical development toward concepts taken from cultural anthropology and literary criticism. Much of the most exciting work in history recently has been affiliated with this wide-ranging effort to write history that is essentially a history of culture. The essays presented here provide an introduction to this movement within the discipline of history. The essays in Part One trace the influence of important models for the new cultural history, models ranging from the pathbreaking work of the French cultural critic Michel Foucault and the American anthropologist Clifford Geertz to the imaginative efforts of such contemporary historians as Natalie Davis and E. P. Thompson, as well as the more controversial theories of Hayden White and Dominick LaCapra. The essays in Part Two are exemplary of the most challenging and fruitful new work of historians in this genre, with topics as diverse as parades in 19th-century America, 16th-century Spanish texts, English medical writing, and the visual practices implied in Italian Renaissance frescoes. Beneath this diversity, however, it is possible to see the commonalities of the new cultural history as it takes shape. Students, teachers, and general readers interested in the future of history will find these essays stimulating and provocative.

A bomb, an anarchist's 'accidental death', the murder of a police commissar, and the confession of a former member of Lotta Continua led to seven dubious court cases and a tale of political opportunism and dishonesty. Standing in the tradition of Emile Zola's famous J'accuse polemic against the Dreyfus trial at the end of the nineteenth century, the historian Carlo Ginzburg draws on his work on witchcraft trials in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to dissect the weaknesses and contradictions of the state's case in this late-twentieth-century political show-trial and reflects more generally on the similarities and differences between the roles of the Historian and the judge.

Some extracts from reviews:'... the radically new programme of historical research initiated by a group of historians ... has firmly established itself as perhaps the most interesting approach in the field of South Asian Studies ...'Indian Book Chronicle'... brings home to us the urgent need to advance the frontiers of historical investigation ...'Economic and Political Weekly'... breaks new ground in history ...'The Indian Economic and Social History Review

In this brilliant work, the most influential philosopher since Sartre suggests that such vaunted reforms as the abolition of torture and the emergence of the modern penitentiary have merely shifted the focus of punishment from the prisoner's body to his soul.

Fifty Key Thinkers on Historyis a superb guide to historiography through the ages. The cross-section of debates and thinkers covered is unique in its breadth, taking in figures from ancient China, Greece and Rome, through the Middle Ages, to contemporary Europe, America, Africa and Australia; from Bede to Braudel; Marx to Michelet; Ranke to Rowbotham; Foucault to Fukuyama. Each clear and concise essay offers biographical information, a summary and discussion of the subjects approach to history and how others have engaged with it, a list of their major works and a guide to diverse resources for further study, including books, articles, films and websites.

More than three decades after its first publication, Edward Said's groundbreaking critique of the West's historical, cultural, and political perceptions of the East has become a modern classic. In this wide-ranging, intellectually vigorous study, Said traces the origins of "orientalism" to the centuries-long period during which Europe dominated the Middle and Near East and, from its position of power, defined "the orient" simply as "other than" the occident. This entrenched view continues to dominate western ideas and, because it does not allow the East to represent itself, prevents true understanding. Essential, and still eye-opening, Orientalism remains one of the most important books written about our divided world.

In this volume, English historian Richard Evans offers a defence of the importance of his craft. At a time when fact and historical truth are under unprecedented assault, Evans shows us why history is necessary. Taking us into the historians' workshop to show us just how good history gets written, he demolishes the wilder claims of postmodern historians, who deny the possibility of any realistic grasp of history, and explains the deadly political dangers of losing a historical perspective on the way we live our lives.

The new edition of G. R. Elton's classic work is a wide-ranging, succinct and practical introduction for all students and general readers of history. It makes a major contribution to the question "what is history?".

The Companion to Historiography is an original analysis of the moods and trends in historical writing throughout its phases of development and explores the assumptions and procedures that have formed the creation of historical perspectives. Contributed by a distinguished panel of academics, each essay conveys in direct, jargon-free language a genuinely international, wide-angled view of the ideas, traditions and institutions that lie behind the contemporary urgency of world history.

The first book on historiography to adopt a global and comparative perspective on the topic, A Global History of Modern Historiography looks not just at developments in the West but also at the other great historiographical traditions in Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere around the world over the course of the past two and a half centuries. This second edition contains fully updated sections on Latin American and African historiography, discussion of the development of global history, environmental history, and feminist and gender history in recent years, and new coverage of Russian historical practices. Beginning in the mid-eighteenth century, the authors analyse historical currents in a changing political, social and cultural context, examining both the adaptation and modification of the Western influence on historiography and how societies outside Europe and America found their own ways in the face of modernization and globalization. Supported by online resources including a selection of excerpts from key historiographical texts, this book offers an up-to-date account of the status of historical writing in the global era and is essential reading for all students of modern historiography.

This short history of history is an ideal introduction for those studying or teaching the subject as part of courses on the historian's craft, historical theory and method, and historiography. Spanning the earliest known forms of historical writing in the ancient Near East right through to the present and covering developments in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, it also touches on the latest topics and debates in the field, such as 'Big History', 'Deep History' and the impact of the electronic age. It features timelines listing major dynasties or regimes throughout the world alongside historiographical developments; guides to key thinkers and seminal historical works; further reading; a glossary of terms; and sample questions to promote further debate at the end of each chapter. This is a truly global account of the process of progressive intercultural contact that led to the hegemony of Western historiographical methods.

In The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences eleven scholars widely known for their interdisciplinary work investigate one of the most striking developments in the intellectual world today: the return to history by a wide range of academic disciplines. From new historicism in literary theory, to ethnohistory, to historical sociology, these new approaches have resulted both in more works of historical analysis and in a more self-conscious attempt to locate the human sciences in their own histories. The essays in The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences--eight of them published here for the first time--take stock of these changes from the perspectives of some of the disciplines most deeply involved: anthropology, sociology, political science, law, literary studies, and history itself. Many of the authors have played a crucial role in producing the historic turn in their own disciplines. The volume as a whole, therefore, goes significantly beyond a mere inventory of these changes to ask how and how much history can make a difference; how the practice of history is affected by post-structural and other theories; and what is left of both unproblematized history and social science after the historic turn. Taken together the essays give a sense both of what these various turns to history have in common and what sets them apart. This comparative dimension distinguishes the volume from those that have analyzed the impact of history on a single field or have assayed its effects without including historians themselves. In the wake of the historic turn neither the historical actor nor the historical analyst will ever again be seen as a colossus striding over the pages of history.This volume explains in an extraordinary thought-provoking and challenging way why this must be so. Terrence J. McDonald is Professor of History, University of Michigan.

The focus of Fernand Braudel's great work is the Mediterranean world in the second half of the sixteenth century, but Braudel ranges back in history to the world of Odysseus and forward to our time, moving out from the Mediterranean area to the New World and other destinations of Mediterranean traders. Braudel's scope embraces the natural world and material life, economics, demography, politics, and diplomacy.

Examines the history and culture of eighteenth-century France as it provides a view of the people of the cities, towns, and countryside during the Age of Enlightenment.

In 1929 two French historians, Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch, founded Annales, a historical journal which rapidly became one of the most influential in the world. They believed that economic history, social history and the history of ideas were as important as political history, and that historians should not be narrow specialists but should learn from their colleagues in the social sciences. Two of the most distinguished French members of the Annales school are represented in this volume - Fernand Braudel and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie - the core of which is the debate on the Price Revolution of the sixteenth century dealt with by Cipolla, Chabert, Hoszowski and Verlinden. Within the volume, all the contributions are oriented towards Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and all are concerned with long-term changes, and with the relation between economic growth and social change. It includes articles on the European movement of expansion discussed by Malowist and the activities of the Hungarian nobles as entrepreneurs discussed by Pach, and two articles on wider issues: Le Roy Ladurie on the history of climate, and Braudel, summing up the Annales programme, on the relation between history and the social sciences. This classic text was first published in 1972.

"Eley brilliantly probes transformations in the historians' craft over the past four decades. I found A Crooked Line engrossing, insightful, and inspiring." --Lizabeth Cohen, author of A Consumers' Republic "A Crooked Line brilliantly captures the most significant shifts in the landscape of historical scholarship that have occurred in the last four decades. Part personal history, part insightful analysis of key methodological and theoretical historiographical tendencies since the late 1960s, always thoughtful and provocative, Eley's book shows us why history matters to him and why it should also matter to us." --Robert Moeller, University of California, Irvine "Part genealogy, part diagnosis, part memoir, Eley's account of the histories of social and cultural history is a tour de force." --Antoinette Burton, Professor of History and Catherine C. and Bruce A. Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies, University of Illinois "Eley's reflections on the changing landscape of academic history in the last forty years will interest and benefit all students of the discipline. Both a native informant and an analyst in this account, Eley combines the two roles superbly to produce one of most engaging and compelling narratives of the recent history of History." --Dipesh Chakrabarty, author of Provincializing Europe Using his own intellectual biography as a narrative device, Geoff Eley tracks the evolution of historical understanding in our time from social history through the so-called "cultural turn," and back again to a broad history of society. A gifted writer, Eley carefully winnows unique experiences from the universal, and uses the interplay of the two to draw the reader toward an organic understanding of how historical thinking (particularly the work of European historians) has evolved under the influence of new ideas. His work situates history within History, and offers students, scholars, and general readers alike a richly detailed, readable guide to the enduring value of historical ideas. Geoff Eley is Professor of History at the University of Michigan.

In this book, now published in 10 languages, a preeminent intellectual historian examines the profound changes in ideas about the nature of history and historiography. Georg G. Iggers traces the basic assumptions upon which historical research and writing have been based, and describes how the newly emerging social sciences transformed historiography following World War II. The discipline's greatest challenge may have come in the last two decades, when postmodern ideas forced a reevaluation of the relationship of historians to their subject and questioned the very possibility of objective history. Iggers sees the contemporary discipline as a hybrid, moving away from a classical, macrohistorical approach toward microhistory, cultural history, and the history of everyday life. The new epilogue, by the author, examines the movement away from postmodernism towards new social science approaches that give greater attention to cultural factors and to the problems of globalization.

The Cheese and the Worms is an incisive study of popular culture in the sixteenth century as seen through the eyes of one man, the miller known as Menocchio, who was accused of heresy during the Inquisition and sentenced to death. Carlo Ginzburg uses the trial records to illustrate the religious and social conflicts of the society Menocchio lived in. For a common miller, Menocchio was surprisingly literate. In his trial testimony he made references to more than a dozen books, including the Bible, Boccaccio's Decameron, Mandeville's Travels, and a "mysterious" book that may have been the Koran. And what he read he recast in terms familiar to him, as in his own version of the creation: "All was chaos, that is earth, air, water, and fire were mixed together; and of that bulk a mass formed--just as cheese is made out of milk--and worms appeared in it, and these were the angels." Ginzburg's influential book has been widely regarded as an early example of the analytic, case-oriented approach known as microhistory. In a thoughtful new preface, Ginzburg offers his own corollary to Menocchio's story as he considers the discrepancy between the intentions of the writer and what gets written. The Italian miller's story and Ginzburg's work continue to resonate with modern readers because they focus on how oral and written culture are inextricably linked. Menocchio's 500-year-old challenge to authority remains evocative and vital today.

This classic and imaginative account of working-class society in its formative years, 1780 to 1832, revolutionized our understanding of English social history. E. P. Thompson shows how the working class took part in its own making and re-creates the whole-life experience of people who suffered loss of status and freedom, who underwent degradation, and who yet created a cultured and political consciousness of great vitality.