An Intelligent Person's Guide to History

by John Vincent

Paperback, 2006

Status

Available

Call number

901

Genres

Collection

Gifts

Publication

Overlook Books (2006), 192 pages

Description

John Vincent has often been accused of political incorrectness in his writings about history. In this controversial study of history, Professor Vincent goes to the very heart of the complex issues raised by the subject. In 1928 Bernard Shaw wrote his Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. Nearly 70 years later, in a simliarly poelmical tract, Vincent makes no such concessions to feminist sensibilities or to the politics of the left.

User reviews

LibraryThing member tuckerresearch

One of the better "introductions" to history and its ugly step-sister: historiography. I put "introduction" in quotes because Vincent assumes that you already have a good background in the history of history. He drops names as if he were trying to impress a girl (Clio?) on a date. The difference

between Vincent and others is that he writes well and is quite funny, to the point of political incorrectness. He slays historical dragons to the political left and rigt. Bias? Other historiographers talk about it, try to show you how to work around it, Vincent revels in it, lauds it. Kings and Battles? Oft-degraded, Vincent shows it is no different from any other type of history - it's all a construct (and biased). Like the postmodernists, but without all the hand-wringing and anti-capitalististic, anti-Western Civilizationism, he notes that historians are a product of their environment. Why do historians lean left? They are beholden to the quasi-socialist State. That's one explanation, I think there are a few more, but I hadn't thought about it in the particular fashion he lays out, however.

I heartily recommend this slim volume for the committed historian (there's a pun in there).

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