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What Is History?

by E. H. Carr, Robert W. Davies (editor)

3.78 of 5 stars 3.78 · rating details · 760 ratings · 49 reviews

Who is to say how things really were? In formulating a modern answer to the question 'What is History?' Professor Carr shows that the 'facts' of history are simply those which historians have selected for scrutiny. Millions have crossed the Rubicon, but the historians tell us that only Caesar's crossing was significant. All historical facts come to us as a result of interp...more

Paperback, 188 pages

Published November 1st 1990 by Penguin Books (first published 1961)

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Mar 25, 2009 Seán rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009, history

I bought a 50¢ copy of this book years ago on a bargain bin spree at either Housing Works or the Strand. Until recently, every time I paged through it I couldn't help but deride its maddeningly simple-minded premise: in a series of lectures at Cambridge in the 1950s, Carr set out to actually answer the question what is history.

Is history a science? Are there "causes" for historical events? What is fact? And, yes, this is as boring as one might expect. You advance through a few pages of this kind...more

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Apr 17, 2013 Richard Hughes rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed-books

Believe it or not, this book is a best seller. To date, it has sold nearly one quarter of a million copies. ‘What is History?’ is over 50 years old and is still indispensable reading for historians, history students and anyone with more than a passing interest in history. Despite his landmark history of the Soviet Union, this short work dominated E.H. Carr’s entry in ‘Fifty Key Thinkers on History’ (Marnie Hughes-Warrington, Routledge, 2000).

The book is essentially the transcripts of a series of...more Believe it or not, this book is a best seller. To date, it has sold nearly one quarter of a million copies. ‘What is History?’ is over 50 years old and is still indispensable reading for historians, history students and anyone with more than a passing interest in history. Despite his landmark history of the Soviet Union, this short work dominated E.H. Carr’s entry in ‘Fifty Key Thinkers on History’ (Marnie Hughes-Warrington, Routledge, 2000).

The book is essentially the transcripts of a series of Trevelyan lectures delivered in Cambridge in 1961. The lectures were also broadcasted by the BBC and caused a storm of controversy. It addressed what E.H. Carr’s biographer Jonathan Haslam (‘The Vices of Integrity: E.H. Carr 1892 – 1982’, pub. 1999) described as “the age-old debate on the tensions between causation and chance, free will and determination, the individual and society, and subjectivity and objectivity”.

If you ever thought that understanding history must be quite easy, relatively straight-forward, non-controversial and a little boring, this book is definitely for you! History, when done properly, is challenging, complicated, contentious and utterly fascinating.

Haslam stresses that ‘What is History?’ should be read in the context of an “intermittent series of engagements in a war that has gone on since the forties”. The war was with Isaiah Berlin. Berlin’s ‘Historical Inevitability’ (1954) insisted that the ‘Historicism’ of Hegel and Marx were guilty of popularising a ‘determinism’ that rode roughshod over an ‘individual’s freedom of choice and the role of accident in history. Carr took a different line. As John Bellamy Foster (‘Defence of History’, pub. 1997) summarises, “although history has no single, definite, predetermined logic independent of human action and changing conditions, this is no reason to jettison the notion that everything ultimately has a cause(s); or the idea that the logic of historical inquiry involves precisely the search for those casual relationships, or determine boundaries and framing of events, which we can ascertain”.

Both Berlin and Carr caricature each other’s positions for effect. Haslam argues that, ultimately, “the distance between Carr and Berlin in respect to their views of history was thus in some respects not as great as the public polemic would suggest; it was with respect to their political beliefs that the distance was undeniable and unlikely ever to be bridged”. Berlin was a liberal and a Cold War warrior. He condemned the Soviet Union – and Marxism – absolutely. Carr, on the other hand, was of the Left. He believed that “the danger is not that we shall draw a veil over the enormous blots on the record of the Revolution, over its cost in human suffering, over the crimes committed in its name. The danger is that we shall be tempted to forget altogether, and pass over in silence, its immense achievements… I know that anyone who speaks of the achievements of the revolution will at once be branded as a Stalinist. But I am not prepared to submit to this kind of moral blackmail. After all, an English historian can praise the achievements of the reign of Henry VIII without being supposed to condone the beheading of wives” (taken from ‘From Napoleon to Stalin and other essays’, pub. 1982). In respect to Marxism, Isaac Deutscher wrote, “much though Mr. Carr has absorbed from the Marxist conception of history, he does not identify himself with it and maintains a certain reserve towards it; in spite of his explicit criticisms of the British tradition, especially of its empiricist strand, he is of it, even if not quite in it” (cited in Haslam).

Despite its great impact, ‘What is History?’ did not really satisfy Carr and he carried on accumulating material that he could utilise in a second venture into the philosophy of history. Unfortunately, he never got around to it. So, we will just have to make do with this stimulating and provocative polemic. Highly recommended.(less)

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Jul 27, 2010 Allen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Thank you to Jackie Hurwitz for even reminding me of What is History? by Edward Hallett Carr.

I read this book for a course on Historiography at Middlebury College in 2004. I should remark that this was the first book on the subject in the syllabus because, if I had read some of the other literature first, my impression may have been substantially less positive. In my opinion, positivism is the problem behind Carr's theory. Carr just puts too much credibility in the validity and Truth of facts.

I...more

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Dec 31, 2011 David Sarkies rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Those interested in studying history as a discipline.

Shelves: philosophy

This book is not actually a book on history per se but rather an exploration of the discipline of history. This is the main reason that I consider it philosophy as it is not looking at a specific historical event, or looking at the history of civilisation but rather taking a step back and exploring what it is that historians do. This is something that many of us generally take forgranted when we look and an historical event. Many of us will discuss the reasons behind the event and the results o...more This book is not actually a book on history per se but rather an exploration of the discipline of history. This is the main reason that I consider it philosophy as it is not looking at a specific historical event, or looking at the history of civilisation but rather taking a step back and exploring what it is that historians do. This is something that many of us generally take forgranted when we look and an historical event. Many of us will discuss the reasons behind the event and the results of what happened from the event, but we generally do not look at what generally goes into our thought patterns when we discuss these things. This, though, I believe is important because by understanding the background to the discipline helps us interpret the events and come to better conclusions as to the events that we are looking at.
There are a few things that I wish to outline with regards to Carr's philosophy (this book is actually a series of lectures that Carr delivered, and then published in book form). First of all we need to consider the context of the event. Carr indicates that history does not occur in a vacuum. Once again, we generally know and accept this, but do not really think too deeply about what it means. Carr does discuss causation, and this is an important aspect of history, but before we come to causation, we must understand the meaning of the concept of a fact in history.
We generally understand that history is made up of facts. It was a fact that Rome dominated the Mediterranean region during the late classical period, just as it is a fact that Hitler invaded Poland. These are things that we generally do not dispute, but the question that is raised is how we come about those facts. In the case of Hitler there are a lot of sources that we can turn to to confirm this fact and also assist us in making sure that the event of him invading Poland is a clear as possible. In a recent event this is easy, however when we are looking back at events that occurred in Ancient Rome, then our sources are much more limited. For instance, there are only two sources that deal with Hannibul's invasion of the Italian Peninsula, and both of these sources were written by Romans at least a hundred years after the events. As such the telling of this tale is clouded by the opinions of the writers and the societies in which these writers were writing. Then we have sources such as Plutarch, who wrote even later, and wrote from a number of sources. However, Plutarch's telling of the story is going to be coloured by the sources that he chose, and the selections that he took from his sources. Plutarch has a purpose in writing his history, and his use of sources are going to be coloured by how he uses those sources.
As can be seen, the sources that we rely on to obtain our facts of history will be coloured by the writer and the society in which that writer was writing. However there is be a further twist to this in that our interpretation of these sources are going to be further coloured not only by the society in which we live, but also since many of the sources, at least for the ancient world, are not written in our language, we must also go through the process of either interpreting the documents ourselves, or relying upon somebody else's translation. This is probably why Carr indicated that any historian that is worth their salt should be able to read and understand at least one other language (mine is Ancient Greek).
As mentioned, our context is going to colour the way we interpret history, particularly when it comes to the concept of cause and effect. In the Early Modern Era, historical movements and changes were seen as the actions of single men. Therefore an event would occur because a single person chose a course of action and pursued it. Take for instance Hannibul's invasion of Italy. Earlier Carthage and Rome had gone to war over possession of the island of Sicily, and Carthage had lost the war. As a result, Carthage was forced to hand over colonies and pay tribute to Rome. This had left a bitter taste in the mouths of the Carthaginians, and it was going to happen, sooner or later, that one person was going to want revenge, and that person turned out to be Hannibul.
However, as society changed, we came to understand the causes of events differently, particularly as the French Revolution rocked the continent. There was no specific person that could be seen as starting the French Revolution, but rather it was a general social movement which rocked the continent, and these ideas had filtered into the French Nation due to their participation in the American War of Independence. This explanation can also be used with regards to Hannibal. First of all, causes in themselves have causes, and these causes also have causes. As indicated above, it was the Cartheginian defeat in the first Punic War that resulted in Hannibul arising, however, the social movement theory suggests that if it was not Hannibul, it would have been somebody else. Further, it was a social event that brought about the first Punic War: two empires that were growing were bound to come into conflict with each other, and the defeat in the war did not just effect one person, but a whole range of people. In a strange way, history repeated itself in the first half of the 20th century.
However, come the late 19th Century, the concept of causes changed again and now many of us look at economic causes as being the reason behind many historical events. With the French revolution is was the fact that the French Government was bankrupt and attempted to increase an already crippling tax rate upon the commoners that was the spark that resulted in the French revolution. In the same way the first Punic War could be considered a trade war as Rome and Carthage came to blows over trade routes and colonies, in particular Sicily (which was the staging ground for much of the first war). However, this is not purely economic as also strategic for whoever gained control of Sicily would have the upper hand, which suggests that it arose out of a clash of Empires.
I don't necessarily agree entirely with Carr's exposition of history, but that is because we do approach from different angles. I tend to had a teleological view of history, meaning that history moves from a beginning to an end and history is relentlessly moving towards that end, even though we may only have a vague understanding of what that end will be and when it will occur. This has come out of my Christian upbringing. Also there is the debate over divine intervention. Carr does not accept this, however I do, though will admit that it is subtle at best. This comes out in the doctrine of accident in history. Some suggest that there is no such thing as an accident, but I say rubbish. It was an accident that enabled the Americans to defeat the Japanese at the battle of Midway (which it was Hitler's insanity that resulted in him invading Russia). The further back in history we go, the more distinct the causes, the turning points, and indeed the accidents, become. Take for instance the defeat of Senaccerib at the gates of Jerusalem. The bible (one of our sources) says that at night the Angel of Death came down and slaughtered the Assyrian army. Modern historians suggest that it was a diseases. Either way, my position is that this single, accidental (or divine) event pretty much changed the course of history.
I mentioned above that if Hannibul didn't rise up, somebody else would have. While that may be true, it was Hannibul, with all of his strengths and his weaknesses, that rose up. It was Hannibul that came up with the plan to march over the Alps, and the tactics he used to defeat the Romans at Cannae. Even though the Romans were defeated, it was Hannibul that hesitated for too long when deciding his next move that resulted in Scipio Africanus being able to launch a counter attack against Carthage. Further, it was Hitler who decided to attack Russia instead of Turkey, and it was also Hitler who decided to change course and move away from Moscow and instead attack Stalingrad. It was these characters, with their specific events and flaws that resulted in the history as we know it, and it is my position that it was God who raised these people up (or arranging other accidents) to set the course of history as it happens.
Obviously this then raises the question of free will verses determination. Do we have free will, or are we just prisoners of a relentless history that moves forward. While I may have argued on determinism above, we have to remember that it was the choices that people made, and their desire to see through to the end their plans, that turned history the way it went. While God may have raised up Hannibul to attack Rome, it was Hannibul's choice to do something about the defeat his people had suffered, just as it was Hannibul's choice not to march on Rome after defeating the Romans at Cannae. In the same vein, it was Hitler's choice to invade Soviet Russia instead on Turkey (the reason I use that is that if he had invaded Turkey, he could have then moved into the Fertile Crescent and captured the oil fields of the Middle East rather than wasting his resources in a fruitless campaign against Russia). In the same sense (though this is controversial in and of itself) it was Franklin Delanore Roosevelt's decision not to act against the Japanese Fleet that turned the war in the Allies' favour, just as it was the Japanese's leadership's decision to attempt to take out the American Pacific fleet to attempt to prevent them from entering the war.
This is a short book, and while I would suggest that we don't need to agree with everything Carr writes in his book, I believe this is a good book for the serious student of history. Carr assists us in understanding the discipline and also the controversies that arise in the way we interpret it: do we look at single people, accidents, social movements, or economic forces. Carr suggests, and I agree, that we must look at all of these factors, as all of these factors, particularly when we are looking at modern events (such as World War II, which ironically Carr does not even mention) in trying to understand the context, the reasons behind, and the effects, of these events. (less)

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Jun 18, 2012 Herman Gigglethorpe rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

This is quite a challenging book, and you have to read it multiple times in order to understand all of what E.H. Carr is saying.

It's still a great introduction to historiography. History is not just about learning facts, but learning about bias in the records and interpreting the importance of events in their social context. One example that he gives is that many people have crossed the Rubicon, but only Julius Caesar's crossing is considered history.

Other important sections include the ideas o...more

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Jul 16, 2010 Jackie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Excerpt from my essay:

Carr quickly discredits the notion of history as a universal entity, lambasting Acton’s proposal of an “ultimate history” by indicating that such a concept imposes a complete separation between subject and object. The 19th century positivist claim that history is a pure science is a false conviction based not on reality but rather, as Carr calls it, a “cult of facts.” Factuality comprises merely one aspect of the historian’s task. To have meaning, facts must be properly ana...more

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Mar 08, 2011 Tara Van Beurden rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-2008

I had to read this for that same subject I had to read A.J. P. Taylor for, Interpreting the Past. I passed the subject (I think) so yay for me! Basically looks at the evolution and definition of history. Obviously not as interesting as Taylor but I quite enjoy reading the more philosophical interpretations of the world, so I didn’t half mind it. Opened my eyes to a few things I hadn’t considered before which is always handy when I’m trying to argue history or philosophy with my nerdy, intellectu...more

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May 14, 2013 Marc L rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historiography, philosophy

This book contains 6 lectures Carr gave, back in 1961. So, it has a certain stamp of time. But nevertheless, I was very pleased about the value of Carr's opinions. These treat about the methodology of the historic profession, as well as about the philosophical foundations of it. Carr is always subtle and very precise about the essence and the frontiers of historic writing. My only reservations treat about his view on accident in history and his formulation of objectivity. But his eloquent way of...more

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May 29, 2013 Stuart West rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction-academia

This book convinced me to take Ancient History over Psychology as my undergraduate degree, so I may be a little biased. E. H. Carr's "What Is History?" is perhaps the leading introductory textbook on historiography (i.e. the study of historical method). It's essential reading for anyone who has an interest in history, and especially those who are studying any aspect of the subject. Carr's book has always been highly-controversial among professional historians as it contains a number of contentio...more This book convinced me to take Ancient History over Psychology as my undergraduate degree, so I may be a little biased. E. H. Carr's "What Is History?" is perhaps the leading introductory textbook on historiography (i.e. the study of historical method). It's essential reading for anyone who has an interest in history, and especially those who are studying any aspect of the subject. Carr's book has always been highly-controversial among professional historians as it contains a number of contentious ideas about historical method. In recent years the controversy has ignited again in the context of education, as policy-makers and educators debate what is the best way to teach history at different scholastic levels. This is something I've experienced during my time as a academic. Some scholars tend to be biased to their opinion, even disregarding the history - money (i.e. funding)is also causing a further drift from the historical facts.

Essentially, Carr's approach is to look at the way the historian's own bias affects the history he writes. Instead of viewing the historian as an impartial agency situated outside of history, Carr argues that the historian is part of the historical process. What the historian thinks is as important as what happened in history, and each interacts with the other, so that the historian's own social and political perspective will influence both the facts he selects as historically significant and how those facts are interpreted. As perspective is critical, history becomes not merely a dry chronicle of 'what happened', but a vision of the future projected into the past. The main criticism of this approach seems to be that it prioritises the historian over history. This criticism finds populist expression in the idea that children should study history by learning facts rather than skills. The first (traditionalist) approach emphasises content. The second (modern) approach emphasises the historian.

Having read the book for myself, I find this criticism to be very unfair, reflecting a misunderstanding of Carr's ideas. Carr does place a great emphasis on interpretation and how we go about looking at history, the bias we bring to it and how this affects historical content, but Carr is not dismissing the importance of content. He is merely suggesting that a competent historian must consider the process of how history is made by historians, and in particular how his own perspective might influence which facts he chooses to select and how he interprets those facts. This seems to me perfectly reasonable, and it's clear that many of the historians who criticise Carr cannot have read the book, or if they have, they were not paying attention. Perhaps the real reason for the controversy is that many see a political edge to Carr's historical methods. I have to say, this is an observation I find puzzling. There cannot be any political implication taken from this book, if properly understood. This is not a 'left-wing' or a 'right-wing' book in its own right. It is just a set of ideas on what might guide a competent historian, and Carr's maxim, "Before you study the history, study the historian" is demonstrable in the way virtually any history book is written. Carr himself was a historian I quite admire, mainly because he was able to look at his main field of study, the Soviet Union, quite fairly and objectively. He was not a Marxist himself, but he emphasised the importance of Marxism to history, rather than dismissing its significance as many anti-Marxist historians are want to do.

There are some weaknesses in this book. Carr never really gets to grips with the role of accident in history, a controversy that he glosses over with some weak analogies, but I think where Carr really gets into trouble is when he starts to discuss 'History As Progress'. The problem with Carr's perspective is, first, a belief in an abstract 'progress' as a material end in itself, something which is impossible to define in any rigorous way and which absolves us from properly understanding history; second, a faith in optimism over the real source of historical change, which is conflict.

On the first point, I would suggest that if we wish to define progress as Carr sees it, which is ever-widening reason and liberalism, then history is not necessarily progress and there is little empirical evidence that it is or need be over the greater span of time. In fact, history may prove to be what Carr would consider to be regression and there is no reason why others would not see that as progress. Carr's defenders might respond to this by pointing out that Carr explicitly saw 'progress' as neutral, as nothing more substantial than a 'North' point on the compass of history, a changeable abstract that we continually move towards and interact with, but I find it is undeniable that Carr is specific about what progress 'is', not just where it is located, i.e. that it is liberalism. That being the case, we need to consider whether Carr's preoccupation with 'liberalism as progress' actually strips history of its meaning.

Second, and related to the first point, Carr does not deal rigorously with the role of conflict in history. He seems to think that optimism about the future - a dream - is what drives history, in this case a liberal dream of widespread enlightenment, but it seems clear to me that in fact history is made up of conflicts, mainly of class and race, and it is through conflict that the historical process has to be viewed by historians.

I also think there is a missing critical idiom: the reader of history. Carr does not consider how the perspective of the reader (as opposed to that of the historian) can affect its interpretation. I think that would be a very interesting line of inquiry, particularly in view of emerging post-modern approaches. However, these points do not detract from the greatness of the book and I'm very glad I decided to read this classic again.

This particular edition is recommended because it includes notes by E. H. Carr on a proposed second edition which he, sadly, never came to write.
(less)

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May 17, 2010 Hong rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

i know this is a good book but i just didn't have the patience/knowledge in history to fully appreciate it. but i did learn a few things, that history is not as simple/straight-forward as what i used to think. History is essentially an interplay between the subjective and objective; the past, present and future - how the past is viewed from the present, and how the present is viewed based on the past.
And that historical "facts" aren't purely facts as we know them, because the historian has to s...more

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Feb 27, 2010 Harpal rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Man, a real sleeper of a book, but there are a couple of fantastic meditations on the subject of causation in history and hierarchy of explanation in history. Both of them are fascinating. The discussion on causation is one that I think we've all thought about ourselves, discussing the relative importance of proximate and underlying causes, as well as chains of causation and what importance each link in such a chain has. Really interesting stuff to think about, but the rest of the book is kind o...more

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Jan 02, 2013 Mary rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: teachco_ancientrome, history

Carr's lectures on his philosophy of history are somewhat aggravating to read. Near the beginning of each lecture/essay, he'll say something at odds with common sense. And then over the next 10 or 20 pages, you come to realize he didn't mean exactly what you thought he did, and perhaps he's not completely mad after all.

It occurred to me halfway through that we are now almost as far removed from Carr (speaking in 1961) as Carr was from the late 19th century/early 20th century historians whose phi...more

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Oct 27, 2012 Julio César rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

¡Qué librazo! Nunca pensé que la Historia fuera tan interesante, sobre todo bien explicada como el profesor Carr en esta serie de conferencias. Parece mentira que tenga 50 años este material, parece tan actual... Trata las cuestiones de la verdad, la objetividad, el individuo y la sociedad con una perspectiva muy útil para cualquier investigador de lo social. Aunque, como yo, no tengo una formación historiográfica.

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Dec 15, 2012 Ricardo Ribeiro rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am now 47 years, and I read this one when I was 20. It was in my first university (or college, if you are American) and its reading marked me deeply. It came with the emotion of the first really serious studying book. And it made me think a lot about the degree I was about to initiate. In a word, one of the books of my life.

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Oct 04, 2011 umberto rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, lectures

I think this seemingly small book demands a bit of patience and love of history in its pure sense and ideology from its readers, no matter what knowledge or experience they've had through their lives. One of the reasons is that, from its six chapters, you're reading a series of university lectures held in 1961 by a Fellow of Trinity College who, presumably, took them as part of serious history (coined by Polybius in his "The Rise of the Roman Empire", Penguin 1979), therefore, reading him is a b...more

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May 03, 2008 Gregg rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history_scholarship

Old news to the professionals, I suppose. I tell my students all the cliches already: "History is written by the victors"; "History is a cruel joke on the living"; "History is pop culture." (That last one is from Wuhl, by the way.) But Carr apparently got the ball rolling. To him, studying history means studying the historian. To him, facts are not objective, in that they were subjectively selected and arranged by a human being, subject to all the subjectivity bestowed upon him and her. And to C...more

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Jan 09, 2013 Ed rated it 4 of 5 stars

Great read - lucid, often entertaining and not afraid to be controversial. You'd want to be into historiography, but this is a good addition to help put the state of the debate in the second half of the 20th century in context. It's outdated now, but the comments on ideas of progress and the usefulness of history are still relevant today, and the notes for the second edition from R W Davies are a decent update.

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Jan 02, 2013 Paul rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, philosophy

One of the most interesting books I've read in a long time. Thoroughly enjoyed Carr's turn of phrase and occasional cheeky jabs at Karl Popper. His progressive approach to historiography and disdain for conservatism as an intellectual movement resonated well within me, so this reviewer can give it no less than five thumbs up. Top banana.

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Apr 12, 2008 Ben rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

This was assigned reading for my Historiography class at the University of New Mexico. The professor used to call himself Old Spidle. And throughout that class he used to remind us of this book, and Carr exhorting us to find out the motives behind authors/historians. Bees in the bonnet. Over and over again my professor would say "Don't forget Old Spidle, Edward Hallet Carr, and Bees in the bonnet." And even though I don't always remember why or how, no matter what I read, see or hear, I always t...more

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Feb 10, 2012 DoctorM rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: essays, history-and-historiography, history-favourites

One of the classics of modern thinking about History as a discipline. Simply put--- something every serious History major or graduate student should read...and so should anyone interested in what History as a discipline is and does.

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Jun 06, 2012 Dara rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Fascinating series of lectures on history from a heterodox Marxist/political realist. Some excellent insights into history and politics, written in an engaging style.

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Jun 29, 2010 Hayley rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history-biography

One of the greatest books I ever read - very influential in how I have started my approach to studying history. A must for history enthusiasts and academics.

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Nov 13, 2011 4ZZZ rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

I kinda of liked it. It is a bit repetitive at times, and I found myself agreeing and disagreeing with Carr though that should not matter. Not sure I am iot

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Aug 05, 2011 Rebecca rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If you thought studying history was simply just about dates, think again...and again. This book ended up with me tied up in philosophical knots about the study of the past.

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Nov 07, 2012 Selin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"... Bu sapkınlığa kendisini kaptıran bir kimse ya kötü bir iş diye tarihi bırakacak ve pul toplamaya ya da başka tür bir antikacılığa başlayacak, yahut tımarhaneyi boylayacaktır." son günlerimin ifadesi...

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Feb 03, 2013 Daniel Nilsson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A seminal work on historiography. A must read for any one even remotely interested in historical theory.

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Aug 20, 2012 Alex rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Read this for a class, but it is an extremely useful book form an outside on history and historiography!

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Mar 22, 2012 Steven Mclain rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A fun and quick examination of modern history and the discussion of what "history" really is.

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Aug 28, 2011 Daniel Domenech rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Historians and future historians

A fine historiographical analysis. Essential for anyone considering a career as a historian.

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Aug 12, 2011 Kedarnaik rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I request to every person who is interested in History : Please dont die without reading this book

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“Study the historian before you begin to study the facts.” — 4 people liked it

“History is the long struggle of man, by exercise of his reason, to understand his environment and to act upon it. But the modern period has broadened the struggle in a revolutionary way. Man now seeks to understand, and act on, not only his environment, but himself; and this has added, so to speak, a new dimension to reason and a new dimension to history.” — 3 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1097793.What_Is_History_?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348414890l/1097793.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1097793.What_Is_History_?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]What Is History? by E. H. Carr[/url]

What Is History?

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