Customer Reviews

What Is History Now?

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.