What Is History Now? [Paperback]

David Cannadine (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 16, 2004 | ISBN-10: 1403933367 | ISBN-13: 978-1403933362

E.H. Carr's What is History?, first published in 1961, was the most influential book to examine writing and thinking about history this century. To commemorate the book's forthieth anniversary, David Cannadine has gathered an all-star cast of contributors to ask and seek answers to E.H. Carr's classic question for a new generation of historians: what does it mean to study history at the start of the twenty-first century? The contributors pose this question anew for the most important and lively subfields of history writing today. For example, Alice Kessler-Harris ponders "what is gender history now?" while Paul Cartledge asks "what is social history now?" This volume stands alongside E.H. Carr's classic, paying tribute to his seminal inquiry while moving the debate into new territory, ensuring its freshness and relevance for a new century of historical study.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Readers will find reliable and insightful information presented without recourse to jargon."--E.A. Breisach, Choice

"If anyone were to provide an equivalent to What is History? for the early twenty-first century, it would surely be David Cannadine...as balanced as [it is] indispensible."--David Armitage, Columbia University

"At last, What is History? gets the successor it deserves...extremely readable and highly stimulating."--Roy Porter, University College, London

"[Cannadine] has assembled a distinguished team who convey, with spirit and
lucidity, the scale and excitement of [historical] discovery."--The Sunday Telegraph

"...should prove invaluable to graduate students and scholars..."--Claude Ury, History: Reviews of New Books

"Both the sense of the past and the strudy of history have changed significantly since E.H.Carr asked the question What is History? The key word in this new book, stimulating and in places provocative, is Now. Various authors, drawing largely on their personal experiences as historians, explore the processes and implications of change."--Asa Briggs

About the Author

David Cannadine is Director of the Institute for Historical Research at the University of London, having returned to London from a Chair in History at Columbia University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (July 16, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1403933367
• ISBN-13: 978-1403933362
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #563,080 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Collected from lectures presented during a two-day symposium, October 12, 2004

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What Is History Now? (Paperback)

Compiled, arranged, and edited by David Cannadine (Director of the Intitute for Historical Research at the University of London and editor of the scholarly journals, "Historical Research" and "Reviews in History", What Is History Now? provides the reader with erudite, well reasoned appraisals of what religious, social, political, cultural, gender, intellectual, and imperial histories are defined to be, in the modern day. Collected from lectures presented during a two-day symposium at the Institute of Historical Research in London, What Is History Now? is a crucial discussion especially for historians and educators seeking to establish a solid, baseline from which to study and teach.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good update on Carr's `What is History?', June 6, 2006

By 

T. P. Ang (Singapore) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: What Is History Now? (Paperback)

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in keeping up-to-date with the development of History as a discipline in last few decades. The book will never generate academic shockwaves on the scale of E. H. Carr's `What is History?', but it nonetheless gathers together and presents effectively the insights of today's experts on various sub-fields within the discipline.

The book begins with a general introduction by Richard Evans (author of `In Defence of History') on `What is History? - Now', followed by chapters by other historians discussing Social, Political, Religious, Cultural, Gender, Intellectual and Imperial History. The discussions are on the whole balanced, well-argued and served up in manageable chapter portions. I found the book extremely helpful as a historiographical overview both as a history undergraduate and graduate student.

4 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Once and future historiographies, January 3, 2004

By 

John C. Landon "nemonemini" (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What Is History Now? (Hardcover)

This interesting and topical upgrade to/commentary on Carr's classic _What is History?_ recaps the historiographical history of the sudden 'postmodern turn' that occurred in the wake of that book with its rapid proliferation of distinct new methodologies, or anti-methodologies. Thrown in relief by Carr's original question these gestures seem to be coming full circle at a moment when the nature of historical writing is once again under examination, as the 'now' in the title suggests. But historical theory is bedouin traveller, never content with itself. One might confound the triumph of the anti-theorists by contro-posing another question, What is evolution? The current paradigmatic has, in part, enforced the wrong answer to question, in the process enforcing the 'must remain muddled' regime of historical explanation. What is evolution and what is history and are the two questions the same and if not when did evolution become history?
These questions remain unanswered in a Darwinian age.