History: theory and methods Books

Modern Italian historiography has undergone a substantial revision in the last quarter of a century. From an almost exclusive focus on the process of nation-building, the attention of historians has shifted. The most innovative research is now devoted to...

Fifty Key Works of History and Historiography introduces some of the most important works ever written by those who have sought to understand, capture, query and interpret the past. The works covered include texts from ancient times to the present day...

This volume represents, explores and interrogates the current developments in the study of memory, engaging directly with the place of memory in culture, and with memory's meanings and history.

Debating Archaeological Empiricism examines the current intellectual turn in archaeology, primarily in its prehistoric and classical branches, characterized by a return to the archaeological evidence. Each chapter in the book approaches the empirical...

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, family history is the place where two great oceans of research are meeting: family historians outside the academy, with traditionally trained, often university-employed historians. This collection is both a...

Oral history gives history back to the people in their own words. And in giving a past, it also helps them towards a future of their own making. Oral history and life stories help to create a truer picture of the past and the changing present,...

After emerging from the tumult of social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the field of Asian American studies has enjoyed rapid and extraordinary growth. Nonetheless, many aspects of Asian American history still remain open to debate. The Oxford...

African-American Activism before the Civil War is the first collection of scholarship on the role of African Americans in the struggle for racial equality in the northern states before the Civil War. Many of these essays are already known as...

Keith Jenkins' work on historical theory is renowned; this collection presents the essential elements of his work over the last fifteen years.

This original and thought-provoking study looks at the context of postmodernist thought in general cultural terms as well as in relation to history. Postmodernism in History traces philosophical precursors of postmodernism and identifies the roots of...

Remembering the Road to World War Two is a broad and comparative, international survey of the historiography of the origins of the Second World War. It explores how, in the case of each of the major combatant countries, historical writing on the origins...

This volume provides a fresh perspective of the history and legacy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, as well as the often-disputed memory of it in contemporary Europe.The unions between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of...

Hidden in Historicism considers how the nineteenth-century philosophy of historicism depicts three "forgotten time regimes": a time of rise and fall, an ambiguous time of synchronicity of the non-synchronous, and a time in which decisive moments dominate...

This book explores the medieval Islamic historiography relating to the Arab conquest of Spain in 711, arguing that the body of medieval Arabic tradition about this conquest is a showcase for the diversity and creativity of medieval Islamic...

The Humanities in Transition explores how the basic components of the digital age will have an impact on the most trusted theories of humanists. Over the past two generations, humanists have come to take basic postmodern theories for granted whether on...

This collection of essays investigates histories in the ancient world and the extent to which the producers and consumers of those histories believed them to be true. Ancient Greek historiographers repeatedly stressed the importance of truth to history;...

This book provides an invaluable resource for students, teachers, and general readers who wish to put current debates on bias, the politicization of history, and threats to history makers into global and historical perspective.

This collection brings together fifteen essays from practitioners of a variety of disciplines that concern themselves with the past: not only historians, but scholars from other branches of the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences.

Much traditional historiography consciously and unconsciously glosses over certain discourses, narratives, and practices. This book examines silences or omissions in Middle Eastern history at the turn of the twenty-first century, to give a fuller account...

Alan Booth draws on a wide range of international research as well as the reflections and experiences of university historians, linking theory and practice. Teaching History at University examines how high-quality history teaching and learning can be...

In this volume of essays John Howard Yoder projects a vision of Christian social ethics rooted in historical community and illuminated by scripture. Drawing upon scriptural accounts of the early church, he demonstrates the Christian community's constant...

This collection of personal narratives by former officers of the Coordinating Council for Women in History weaves together past and present in women's history, and women in the historical profession. Recording the diverse paths taken to become...

Defining a "historic transition" means understanding how the complex system of intellectual, social, and material structures formed that determined the transition from a certain "universe" to a "new universe," where the old explanations were radically...

The aim of this book is to explore the body in various historical contexts and to take it as a point of departure for broader historiographical projects. The chapters in the volume present the ways in which the body constitutes a valuable and productive...

The Routledge Guide to Interviewing sets out a well-tested and practical approach and methodology: what works, difficulties and dangers to avoid and key questions which must be answered before you set out. Background methodological issues and arguments...

More than thirty years later, the Vietnam War still stands as one of the most controversial events in the history of the United States, and historians have so far failed to come up with a definitive narrative of the wartime experience. With competing...

This classic introduction to the study of history invites the reader to stand back and consider some of its most fundamental questions - what is the point of studying history? How do we know about the past? Does an objective historical truth exist and...

This book is devoted to the inhabitants of the Spanish-Portuguese borderlands during the Early Modern Period.

This Companion provides a wide-ranging and up-to-date overview of the conceptual issues that history as a discipline and mode of thought gives rise to. The book offers both historical and systematic treatments of these issues, as well as addressing their...

In post-Soviet Russia, there is a persistent trend to repress, control, or even co-opt national history. By reshaping memory to suit a politically convenient narrative, Russia has fashioned a good future out of a bad past. While Putin's regime has...

Double Helix History examines the interface between genetics and history in order to investigate the plausibility of 'new' knowledge derived from scientific methods and to reflect upon what it might mean for the practice of history.Since the mapping of...

In 1955 Louis Hartz published a volume titled The Liberal Tradition in America, in which he argued that liberalism was the one and only American tradition. Since then scholars of New Left and neoconservative persuasion have offered an alternative account...

Games of History provides an understanding of how games as artefacts, textual and visual sources on games and gaming as a pastime or a "serious" activity can be used as sources for the study of history.From the vast world of games, the book's focus is on...

Antonio Gramsci and the Ancient World explores the relationship between the work of the Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci and the study of classical antiquity. The collection of essays engages with Greek and Roman history, literature, society, and...

Scholarship on immigration to America is a coin with two sides: it asks both how America changed immigrants, and how they changed America. Were the immigrants uprooted from their ancestral homes, leaving everything behind, or were they transplanted,...

Leopold von Ranke, who was born in 1795, is considered to be one of the founders of the modern practice of writing history. This collection of his writings, edited and introduced by Georg G. Iggers, was first published in 1973 and remains the leading...

Over two decades ago we were confronted by the end of the Soviet Union and collapse of the geo-politicall divisions that had defined much of the twentieth century. From this particular end, the 'end of history' was proclaimed. But is it still possible to...

The Cultural History Reader is the first volume to collect together the distinctive contributions made by cultural historians across the spectrum of historiographical methods. It offers a unique view into the insights to be gained from examining how...

Fifty Key Thinkers on History is an essential guide to the most influential historians, theorists and philosophers of history. The entries offer comprehensive coverage of the long history of historiography ranging from ancient China, Greece and Rome,...

"Before us, several remote and now absurd wars." For Robin Gajdusek, these fields represent the first step toward resurrection as he retrieves a lost personal past through a writing catharsis which refocuses the vast battlefields of history into a...