Browse all reviews
What’s the point of history? / Daniel Woolf
Review Date: 06 November 2020
The sub-branch of history that is known by the ambiguous (and frightening to undergraduates, cats, and many mainstream academics) name “historiography” seems to be undergoing a Renaissance at the moment.
Frank Ankersmit’s Lost Historical Cause: A Journey from Language to Experience / Peter Icke
Review Date: 03 May 2012
A book-length examination of the work of Frank Ankersmit has been long overdue. Ankersmit occupies a curious position in regards to the various skirmishes taking place over the philosophy of history in the past 30 years or so. Theorists inclined towards postmodernism – one thinks of Keith Jenkins and Alun Munslow – have been keen to co-opt Ankersmit into their camp.
From History to Theory / Robert J. Richards
Review Date: 01 November 2011
One could perhaps argue that, so far as the popular academic imagination is concerned, America has never had much of a reputation so far as historical theory goes.
Hayden White: The Historical Imagination / Herman Paul
Review Date: 01 October 2011
Hayden White is a controversial figure in the world of history. Study any textbook on the theory and philosophy of history, and you will be assured that his 1973 book Metahistory marked a revolutionary turning point in historical theory.
Doing History / Claire Norton, Mark Donnelly
Review Date: 01 September 2011
Over the past few decades we have been invited to rethink history, pursue it, practise it, defend it, refigure it, and generally consider what it is, what it’s for, and whether we really need to bother with it. Now, just as we think it must all be done and dusted, if not done to death, we are offered more advice on ‘doing’ it.
History in the Discursive Condition: Reconsidering the Tools of Thought / Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth
Review Date: 01 September 2011
In History in the Discursive Condition (2011) – a follow up to her (for me) ground-breaking Realism and Consensus (1), and Sequel to History: Postmodernism and the Crisis of Representational Time (2) – Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth, a student of interdisciplinary cultural history and theory, explores the practical implications for history of the discursive condition, the condition which in her view has been created (or at least…
Conrad Russell / Conrad Russell
Review Date: 01 January 2009
Russell, Conrad Sebastian Robert, Fifth Earl Russell (1937–2004) Conrad Russell, the fifth Earl Russell, historian of 16th- and 17th-century Britain, was the younger son of the mathematician, philosopher, political activist and Nobel prize winner Bertrand Russell.
Past Futures. The Impossible Necessity of History (based on the Joanne Goodman Lectures) / Ged Martin
Review Date: 01 December 2005
'It is not necessary to be dull to write about history', Ged Martin remarks (p. 8). One suspects that many historians would add, 'but it helps'. This book is a wonderful antidote to that excessive seriousness. The style is crisp, paradox and aphorism abound – 'historians love paradoxes', Martin says (p.
History and National Life / Peter Mandler
Review Date: 30 September 2002
At a time when, particularly in the new universities and colleges of higher education, historians feel themselves in danger of being swept away by the advancing tide of vocationalism, any attempt to uphold the importance of the subject to the life of the nation is, one might think, to be welcomed.
History in Practice / Laura Doan
Review Date: 01 October 2001
Historians and their publics: a consideration of Ludmilla Jordanova In 1841, having unsuccessfully contested the Professorship of Natural History at University College London, W. S. Farquharson wrote to the College authorities as follows: I am given to understand that the Professorship of History is vacant [.]. Should the Council have any desire that the vacancy should be filled up, I beg leave to [.