Writing History: Theory and Practice

by Stefan Berger, Heiko Feldner (Editor), Kevin Passmore

Writing History 2nd edition provides students and teachers with a comprehensive overview of the emergence and development of history as a discipline and of the major theoretical developments that have informed historical writing. Instead of focusing on theory, the book uses key historical texts to explain key concepts and demonstrate the ways they have informed practical work. This new edition is fully revised, including new chapters on history and the social sciences, history and anthropology and the Annales and history. It is an invaluable introduction to the central debates that have shaped History.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

376 pages, Paperback

First published November 13, 2003

About the author

Stefan Berger is a Professor of Social History at the Ruhr University Bochum. He specializes in nationalism and national identity studies, historiography and historical theory, comparative labour studies, and the history of industrial heritage.

Reviews

[Beele]

i had more to say about this, however, upon reading the biographies of the authors, no I do not

[Jeanne]

While some chapters were better than others, the bad outweigh the good by a landslide. This isn’t a bad book in content per say but I found the execution of the information in numerous chapters to be lacking as a student.

[versarbre]

The first section "Rankeanism and the professionalization of history"is particularly helpful. Skimmed over the rest. Religion is simply lacking in the selection of topics. What a surprise!

"historians never achieved a monopoly over their field: the matter of imparting knowledge of the past. Bur wherever the professionalization project succeeded, it entailed a shift in the balance of the power to interpret the past. Authority was inextricably linked To historians' claims to objectivity. "Peter Lambert 43

[sj]

i’ve read this so much this year that i’ve decided it’s basically been cover to cover at this point