From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods: Howell, Martha, Prevenier, Walter: 9780801485602: Amazon.com: Books

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Martha C. Howell

From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods Paperback – Large Print, April 27, 2001

by Martha Howell (Author), Walter Prevenier (Author)

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From Reliable Sources is a lively introduction to historical methodology, an overview of the techniques historians must master in order to reconstruct the past. Its focus on the basics of source criticism, rather than on how to find references or on the process of writing, makes it an invaluable guide for all students of history and for anyone who must extract meaning from written and unwritten sources.

Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier explore the methods employed by historians to establish the reliability of materials; how they choose, authenticate, decode, compare, and, finally, interpret those sources. Illustrating their discussion with examples from the distant past as well as more contemporary events, they pay particular attention to recent information media, such as television, film, and videotape.

The authors do not subscribe to the positivist belief that the historian can attain objective and total knowledge of the past. Instead, they argue that each generation of historians develops its own perspective, and that our understanding of the past is constantly reshaped by the historian and the world he or she inhabits.

A substantially revised and updated edition of Prevenier's Uit goede bron, originally published in Belgium and now in its seventh edition, From Reliable Sources also provides a survey of western historiography and an extensive research bibliography.

Print length

224 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Cornell University Press
Publication date

April 27, 2001
Reading age

18 years and up
Dimensions

6 x 0.5 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

0801485606
ISBN-13

978-0801485602
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Among the books designed to teach aspiring historians proper procedures for their work, this volume ranks high. . . .Readers will especially appreciate the care taken to show the link between methodological innovations and the historical contexts in which they occurred."―Choice, January 2002, Vol. 39, No. 5

"If the best historians, beginning with Thucydides, have been skeptical of metaphysical absolutes, they have also been reluctant to immerse themselves in antiquarianism. The present book draws strength from this tension."―Charles Sullivan, Common Knowledge, 2003

"Historians generally have had to work out for themselves the different ways to read and use sources, the issue of how much we actually can learn from the past, the different ways that historical questions have been asked, and the uses to which history can be put. From Reliable Sources makes this process easier by laying out the principal elements of historiography and source criticism. No one, after reading this book, will be able to think again of sources as unproblematic conveyors of simple facts."―Constance Brittain Bouchard, University of Akron

"Both learned and informative, From Reliable Sources is clearly the outcome of extensive archival and critical experience. With its accessible balance of exposition and example, it is also a pleasure to read. There is nothing else like this in English."―Isabel V. Hull, Cornell University

Review

"If the best historians, beginning with Thucydides, have been skeptical of metaphysical absolutes, they have also been reluctant to immerse themselves in antiquarianism. The present book draws strength from this tension."

-- Charles Sullivan, Common Knowledge, 2003

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cornell University Press; A Translation and Adaptation of "Uit goede bron" by Walter Prevenier edition (April 27, 2001)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0801485606
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0801485602
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.5 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #471,858 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #76 in Philosophy Methodology
- #340 in Historiography (Books)
- #22,233 in United States History (Books)

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I wanted to like this book

Reviewed in the United States on September 14, 2020

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It starts pretty good... then you reach the Marxist crap, feminist ideology over psychology crap, and then you get to "whiteness" (the writers did not use the quotation marks) crap. On the bright side I now understand why in college the Middle Easter Studies was not interested in learning facts but only talking about what they considered myths. When I took a history course after taking a middle easter studies like course, I got an F on my first (history) test. The professor wrote, "we can talk about forever about myths. Let's stick to the facts." This book and that "studies" were not interested in finding the facts. Rather its an attempt to legitimize the endless grievance "studies." That is not history... that is bias confirmation. And this book is not the historical method I wish it was.

4 people found this helpful

Richard A. Fidler

Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2007

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This book is intended primarily for serious students of history. It discusses the foundations of historical research--what kinds of questions do historians ask, what constitutes evidence, what makes a source reliable, and the epistomology that underguards historical inquiry. The language is somewhat dense at times and examples are frequently pulled from European history, a not always felicitous choice for students of American history. Still, the reader leaves the book with an arsenal of questions that he can use in tackling his own research questions or in critiquing the work of others. I am still searching for the brief handbook that will provide the amateur historian with a guide towards writing honest, vital, and accurate local histories. To the best of my knowledge, it does not exist.

10 people found this helpful

Gregory B. Welch

It's a good introduction

Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2014

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It was a good introduction, and that was what I was looking for, but I really could have used a more advanced book. I have done grad school work in sociology, so much of what was covered was old hat. But if you had no background in any sort of social science, this would be fine. It would actually be nice to give at least part of this as an assignment in an advanced high school history course, to give students a better understanding of what they are getting when they read history: an informed argument.

6 people found this helpful

Amatuers playing at being professionals

Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2013

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While Howell and Prevenier my be experts in their respective narrow fields of study, namely various aspects of the Low Countries, but when it comes to explicating the skills of historical methodologies to the nascent historian they don't have a clue. The book is written in a confusing and cumbersome style which often overshadows the main criteria they are attempting to explain. Further confusing the issue there is very little in the way of elucidating examples or evidence to back up their presentation of criteria. For example the typology breakdown offered as a mainstay in historical research may be founded on the development of historical research, but they do not say so, in fact the typologies as presented to the amateur audience appear to be little more than random elements of much more sophisticated typology tools that are available. Same thing with their rendering of source evaluation criteria. The common CRAAP test is easier to understand and much more comprehensive in scope. They simply fail to explain in any cogent manner why the various criteria and skills they present are the ones to use for the historian. There are a few hidden gems in here but the reader has to slog through a lot of poor writing to spot them. The best part is - it is a slim volume.

8 people found this helpful

Easy to read reference book

Reviewed in the United States on April 9, 2018

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Easy to read reference book. Great information on sources and how to judge what a source is for history and genealogy research.

Very helpful introduction

Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2005

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History used to be a subject that one could view as somewhat ancillary, as an interesting subject but one that was not really needed to function in the modern world. One could dispense with studying history and still maintain a proper perspective of world events. Any inaccuracies in the reporting of world events were the responsibility of reporters, and historians were viewed in general as occupiers of an ivory tower. They were held to be trustworthy because not much weight was assigned to their scholarly activities.

In general, this attitude about history and historians is now considered to be a mistake. Because of some very volatile and dangerous events in the early twenty-first century, the study of history should be viewed now as one of the most important, if not the most important scholarly activity. One can easily observe the enormous weight that is placed on events of the past, due in part to the ideological agendas that are deeply embedded in contemporary politics. And some historians have chosen to use historical analysis to justify a political agenda, or have acted as sycophants for the institutions that host them. It would be fair to say that some historians are now viewed with extreme skepticism, and many are therefore looking into the historical record and seeking answers on their own. These historical auto-didactics are hungry for tools of analysis in which to study and interpret past events.

This short book gives an introduction to these tools, and any reader, whether of the afore-mentioned type or not, will gain a lot from its perusal. It gives much insight into how historians view and find sources, and is primarily written for non-experts (such as this reviewer) in historical analysis. Philosophers and economists will also discover how the study of history also intersects to a large degree with their own fields.

There is a wealth of information in the book, and many questions are answered as well as raised. Some of these include:

1. What is the nature of historical interpretation? Can historians put themselves in a position where an historical source can be read without giving attention to the historical context that give it meaning?

2. How can an historical source be characterized?

3. Are historians ethically responsible for the content of their works, and if so, to what degree?

4. Is there any value in oral records for historical analysis? In interviewing?

5. What impact has information technology had on historical analysis?

6. How are archives useful for the historian, and does a given archive, taken to be reliable, expand or shrink with time?

7. Will the advent of software to analyze historical texts eventually result in the automation of historical analysis?

8. How do historians assess the accuracy or authenticity of sources?

9. Does the interpretation of an historical document always involve the determination of its intended meaning?

10. Should "firsthand" reports of events always be taken as true?

11. How do historians compare different sources relating to the same historical event?

12. The authors refer to `reasoning by interpolation' or `by analogy'. What exactly is the nature of this kind of reasoning?

13. When can a historian claim that his analysis is correct? Is there a way of quantifying the point at which enough evidence has been collected?

14. Can participants in events claim any special insight into these events over and above what can be obtained by an observer (an historian) who is not, or has not, participated in these events?

15. Can historians view events and documents from an apodictic point of view, i.e. free from bias and any implicit assumptions?

16. Should historians focus on what people did in the past rather than what they thought or felt?

17. Should historians concentrate on deducing the motives of the people in history from their visible actions?

18. The authors point to the use of fields such as psychology to study the "feelings in history." Could the relatively new field of cognitive neuroscience be used to do the same, or even more generally to study the motives, decisions, and mental limitations of people in history? One could view this use as a kind of "historical neurocriticism" and its use could possibly shed considerable light on how people, through their cultures, construct meanings of their experiences and make history.

19. The authors refer to human life as being "too complex" to be analyzed with historical models. What notion of complexity is being used here, and given current methods for dealing with complexity in model-building, would these be of any assistance in the study of history, especially those that attempt to understand to what extent events are caused by human actions?

20. Should historians focus more on studies of "popular culture" and not on "learned culture", i.e. should they analyze historical events in terms of what has recently been called "people's history?"

21. What is the difference between a `linear' theory of history and a `cyclical theory', and is the former always more optimistic than the latter?

22. Can technological innovations and development be used as a reference of time for historical change, i.e. as a kind of clock or calendar in which historians are to delineate events? Such a calendar would not necessarily be a linear ordering of events like the ones that are currently used. In periods of rapid technological development, time will be more compressed than in periods of slow technological development. History could thus be viewed as moving more quickly in the former than in the latter.

82 people found this helpful

Another quick delivery

Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2019

Verified Purchase

Another quick delivery! Textbook for my husband.

Top reviews from other countries

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badboybilly

essential for those new to history

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 19, 2012

Verified Purchase

As an academic, but not a historian, I found this really helpful in explaining the fundamentals of historians' craft, which otherwise doesn't get explained in textbook form that much.

2 people found this helpful

Ben

A good introduction or refresher.

Reviewed in Canada on January 26, 2017

Verified Purchase

This book is well-suited for an undergraduate-level methodology course, however I still appreciated reading it to kick off a graduate seminar on historiography. Provides a fairly up-to-date and comprehensive overview of current approaches and debates in the study of history.

One person found this helpful

faustine dellupo

super

Reviewed in France on April 23, 2016

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j'ai acheté ce livre pour mes études et il est complémentaire à mon cours d'"outils critiques" où on s'intéresse à différents documents qu'on analyse

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