Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Oxford University Press (2000), Edition: 1, Paperback, 136 pages
Description
This essay about how we study and understand history invites us to think about various questions provoked by our investigation of history, and explores the ways these questions have been answered in the past.
User reviews
LibraryThing member AnnieMod
A lot of textbooks, when discussing literary genres, use a sentence which can be summarized as "Herodotus invented history". The first time I saw it I was confused by two things - how history can be considered literature (we were talking about literary genres after all) and how can history be
History can mean a lot of things - it can be the story of what happened, it can be the writing about it, it can be the research of it or even History - that almost force that governs everyone's life. Arnold explores all of those meanings and connects them in a way that shows that as different as they can be, they are all the sides of the same coin. And he does that with the oldest weapon in a historian's arsenal - by telling us stories.
The book is an overview of the development and current state of historiography and history but instead of just introducing us to the different people, methods and controversies, Arnold uses real tales from the past and then shows how they were used (and abused) and reported by historians in different times. The book starts with a murder, loops back to catch up with the Greeks and then moves swiftly through history to get to where we are now. It is a short book so you would not think that this many stories and lives (and pictures) would fit and somehow they do. Some of the writing can get a bit too academic but even when it does, it has a purpose.
A lot of what the book deals with is the changing perception of what truth and history are and how connected they must be. It is fascinating to see how the way history was written shifts between its different branches - from political to social, from specialized to general and back again. All of the examples are from European and US histories which made me wonder how would this book read if it was done by the authors from another part of the word, using their own history to draw both the examples and what they signify. Most of them are from the English-language perspective although there are a few notes about the French historians and how they differ from the English language ones. It would have been fascinating to have a lot more examples both from continental Europe and from around the world. But then writing a unified history of the history of history will require a lot more pages. And this book, exactly as is, is a good enough introduction for an English language speaker.
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invented - it had always been there... Arnold covers both of these topics and a lot more in his excellent introduction to history.History can mean a lot of things - it can be the story of what happened, it can be the writing about it, it can be the research of it or even History - that almost force that governs everyone's life. Arnold explores all of those meanings and connects them in a way that shows that as different as they can be, they are all the sides of the same coin. And he does that with the oldest weapon in a historian's arsenal - by telling us stories.
The book is an overview of the development and current state of historiography and history but instead of just introducing us to the different people, methods and controversies, Arnold uses real tales from the past and then shows how they were used (and abused) and reported by historians in different times. The book starts with a murder, loops back to catch up with the Greeks and then moves swiftly through history to get to where we are now. It is a short book so you would not think that this many stories and lives (and pictures) would fit and somehow they do. Some of the writing can get a bit too academic but even when it does, it has a purpose.
A lot of what the book deals with is the changing perception of what truth and history are and how connected they must be. It is fascinating to see how the way history was written shifts between its different branches - from political to social, from specialized to general and back again. All of the examples are from European and US histories which made me wonder how would this book read if it was done by the authors from another part of the word, using their own history to draw both the examples and what they signify. Most of them are from the English-language perspective although there are a few notes about the French historians and how they differ from the English language ones. It would have been fascinating to have a lot more examples both from continental Europe and from around the world. But then writing a unified history of the history of history will require a lot more pages. And this book, exactly as is, is a good enough introduction for an English language speaker.
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LibraryThing member jjmcgaffey
Very interesting - not an overview of history, but a discussion of History as a discipline and how it developed. Very interesting angles.
LibraryThing member mschaefer
A fine introduction to the history of historical research and current ways of thinking about doing history. Each chapter opens with an example that is used to illustrate the discussion throughout the chapter.
LibraryThing member kevn57
This is just a new edition of History: A Very Short Introduction which I've already read and reviewed.
Excellent intro to how a historian thinks and how they determine what is history. Spoiler, there's a lot of different opinions.
Excellent intro to how a historian thinks and how they determine what is history. Spoiler, there's a lot of different opinions.
LibraryThing member kevn57
Excellent intro to how a historian thinks and how they determine what is history. Spoiler, there's a lot of different opinions.
Language
Original publication date
2000-06-15
Physical description
160 p.; 6.9 inches
ISBN
019285352X / 9780192853523