About this title: A master practitioner gives readers an entertaining and instructive tour of the historian's workshop and, along the way, a spirited defense of the search for historical truth.
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Description: Good. Used-Good Sorry, CD missing. May contain highlighting/underlining/notes/etc. May have used stickers on cover. Ships same or next day. Expedited shipping takes 2-3 business days; standard shipping takes 4-14 business days. read more
Description: Very good. Light wear to edges and pages. Cover and spine show no easily noticeable damage. A tradition of southern quality and service. All books guaranteed at the Atlanta Book Company. read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Fine. 0393319598 NEW/UNREAD! ! ! Text is Clean and Unmarked! --Be Sure to Compare Seller Feedback and Ratings before Purchasing--Has a small black line on bottom/exterior edge of pages. May have light shelf wear to cover from storage, if any. read more
Description: Acceptable. Former Library book. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
Date Published: 1999-01
ISBN-13:9780393046878ISBN:0393046877
Description: Very Good. Pages are free from writing; cover and dust jacket have some light wear; small orange line on the top edge of the book. read more
Edition: First Edition/First Printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780393046878ISBN:0393046877
Description: Very Good in Good jacket. Green/mustard colored jacket has light edge wear and some rubbing on the back, tiny, faint spots on lower edge of boards, probably due to a spill, pages very clean and binding firm, "a master practitioner gives us a book...of the historian's workshop and, along the way, a spirited defense of the search for historical truth" read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780393046878ISBN:0393046877
Description: Very Good in Very good jacket. First Edition. First American edition. First printing. Very good hardcover with very good DJ. Prev owner's name on fep, otherwise unmarked, bright and clean with square and tight binding. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: W W NORTON & CO INC
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780393319590ISBN:0393319598
Description: New. A master practitioner gives us an entertaining tour of the historian's workshop and a spirited defense of the search for historical truth. read more
Description: Very Good. 0393046877 hardcover in very good condition. Pages are clean, binding is tight. Cover has slight shelf wear. Appears gently read. Satisfaction Guaranteed. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Norton
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780393046878ISBN:0393046877
Description: Near Fine jacket. Minor spotting to edges. Text is clean. Ships from WA. Expedited shipping available. Shipments outside the U.S. may take 30 days to arrive. read more
"Richard Evans' In Defense of History is, according the author's introductory claims, a work of reflection on the state of the profession written by an active professional. In this way, it ostensibly mirrors earlier works by E.H. Carr and Geoffrey Elton, both of whom the author often cites. It becomes rapidly clear, however, that the author's primary intention is to respond to the formidable challenge to history as a discipline presented by now well known postmodern criticism. Evans spends much of the book's early chapters outlining a history of history. He breaks the development of the historical discipline into periods framed roughly from the rise of Rankean professionalism until World War I, from World War I through the beginning of the Cold War, from the Cold War to the late 60s and from the late 60s to the 80s and the emergence of postmodernism. The first period is marked by a professionalizing process and the emergence of philology as a means of historical inquiry. The second period is marked by a decline in the optimistic belief in "progress". The Cold War is said to be a time of return to "objectivity" (though Evans' own description of the ideological nature of historical writing during this period makes this characterization curious). This period, and the preceding ones, are also marked by a dominance of the belief that history is the history of politics and great men. This belief is toppled from power in the 60s and early 70s by the rise of social history. Social history is said to have initially been revolutionary in that it shifted emphasis from high politics and "great men" to social movements, economics and "cliometric" or statistical/quantitative approaches. The success of this movement led to the assertion that it was the only true history and that all history was social history. Evans presents postmodernism initially as a reaction to social history but soon turns to a discussion of it as an assault on the professional practice of historical scholarship writ large. He draws from a variety of postmodern sources in order to characterize postmodernism and it is here that he begins to get into trouble according to some critics. Wulf Kansteiner has argued that Evans produces a caricature of postmodernism because he draws from a limited number of sources and presents the most radical variations as mainstream. Kansteiner goes on to state that the fundamental problem with the book is Evans' failure to convincingly prove his main point, that recourse to the historical record is sufficient to settle disputes and makes it possible to discriminate between false and faithful historical assertions. He goes on to state that when Evans defends history against the claims of postmodernism, he does so in a facile and reductive way. To Jenkins' assertions that history is shaped by and preserves existing power structures, he replies that historians can hardly be said to have power in this day and age. To White's claim that historical writing is shaped by "emplotment" or aesthetics, he states that historians can scarcely be said to write in a poetic manner and have not done so since the 19th century. Kansteiner reminds us that even if the individual historian is a relatively marginal social figure, their work can still reinforce greater institutional and cultural power. He also states that the paucity of aesthetically pleasing history writing does not disprove the assertion that the writing of history is shaped by "styles of thought" or "linguistic conventions." In this last he has a particularly strong point, since Evans spends a great deal of time deriding the rise of "jargon" during the dominance of social history writing. Generally speaking, Kansteiner's response to Evans overreaches. While there are weak points to this book, some of which have already been acknowledged above, Kansteiner ignores one crucial aspect of the work. Evans is not simply assaulting postmodernism in an old fashioned attempt to keep the barbarians from the gates. Indeed, Evans explicitly sees the wave of postmodern criticism as parallel to the rise of other historical critiques and methodologies, be they philological, psychological, economic or linguistic. As such, he seems to be advocating the absorption of the best aspects of postmodernism into the mainstream of historical methodology. Where Kansteiner sees inconsistency between Evans' assertion that sources may allow a spectrum of interpretations and his rejection of the idea that contrary interpretations may be equally valid, one may instead see a discursive give and take between a professional and a school of thought that was, and still is, used to discredit his profession. Evans' supposed caricaturing of the postmodern movement seems to be an attempt to continuously warn against the dangers of taking postmodernism to absurd extremes. Evans certainly does not fail to describe positive results of postmodernism's influence on the practice of history. He asserts that it has opened up and legitimized inquiry into the extraordinary, the magical and the transgressive. It has restored the individual's capacity to be an agent of historical change and a subject of historical inquiry. He even asserts that it has revitalized good writing as a characteristic of historical inquiry. While the last assertion may be debatable when one considers the jargon-heavy and frankly unreadable nature of many postmodern works, the fact of these positive influences and Evans' recognition of them cannot be denied."
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