Historiography
by Breisach, ErnstEdition: 3rd
Format: Paperback
Pub. Date: 2007-12-30
Publisher(s): Univ of Chicago Pr
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Summary
In this pioneering work, Ernst Breisach presents an effective, well-organized, and concise account of the development of historiography in Western culture. Neither a handbook nor an encyclopedia, this up-to-date third edition narrates and interprets the development of historiography from its origins in Greek poetry to the present, with compelling sections on postmodernism, deconstructionism, African-American history, women's history, microhistory, the Historikerstreit, cultural history, and more. The definitive look at the writing of history by a historian, Historiography provides key insights into some of the most important issues, debates and innovations in modern historiography. Praise for the first edition: "Breisach's comprehensive coverage of the subject and his clear presentation of the issues and the complexity of an evolving discipline easily make his work the best of its kind."Lester D. Stephens, American Historical Review
Author Biography
Ernst Breisach is professor emeritus of history at Western Michigan University and the author of several books, including American Progressive History: An Experiment in Modernization and On the Future of History: The Postmodernist Challenge and Its Aftermath, both published by the University of Chicago Press.
Table of Contents
| Preface | p. xiii |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| The Emergence of Greek Historiography | p. 5 |
| The Timeless Past of Gods and Heroes | p. 5 |
| Discovering a Past of Human Dimensions | p. 8 |
| The Era of the Polis and Its Historians | p. 12 |
| The New History of the Polis | p. 12 |
| The Decline of the Polis: The Loss of Focus | p. 21 |
| Reaching the Limits of Greek Historiography | p. 27 |
| The History of a Special Decade | p. 27 |
| Hellenistic Historiography: Beyond the Confines of the Polis | p. 30 |
| The Problem of New Regions and People | p. 34 |
| Early Roman Historiography Myths, Greeks, and the Republic | p. 40 |
| An Early Past Dimly Perceived | p. 40 |
| The Roman Past and Greek Learning | p. 43 |
| Greco-Roman History Writing: Triumph and a Latin Response | p. 45 |
| Historians and the Republic's Crisis | p. 52 |
| History as Inspiration and Structural Analysis | p. 52 |
| History Divorced from Rome's Fate | p. 56 |
| Perceptions of the Past in Augustan and Imperial Rome | p. 60 |
| History Writing in the "New Rome" of Augustus | p. 60 |
| Historians and the Empire | p. 65 |
| The Christian Historiographical Revolution | p. 77 |
| The Formulation of Early Christian Historiography | p. 77 |
| The Problem of Continuity in an Age of Upheaval | p. 88 |
| The Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon Consolidation in Historiography | p. 97 |
| The Historiographical Mastery of New Peoples, States, and Dynasties | p. 107 |
| Integrating Peoples into Latin Historiography | p. 107 |
| Legitimizing New States and Dynasties | p. 112 |
| Historians and the Ideal of the Christian Commonwealth | p. 121 |
| The Last Synthesis of Empire and Christianity | p. 121 |
| The Persistence of Christian Themes | p. 125 |
| Histories of a Grand and Holy Venture: The Crusades | p. 132 |
| Historiography's Adjustment to Accelerating Change | p. 138 |
| The Search for Developmental Patterns | p. 138 |
| Transformations of the Chronicle | p. 144 |
| Two Turning Points The Renaissance and The Reformation | p. 153 |
| The Italian Renaissance Historians | p. 153 |
| Humanist Revisionism Outside of Italy | p. 162 |
| The Collapse of Spiritual Unity | p. 166 |
| The Continuing Modification of Traditional Historiography | p. 171 |
| The Blending of Theoretical and Patriotic Answers | p. 171 |
| Universal History: A Troubled Tradition | p. 177 |
| Historians, the New Politics, and New Perceptions of the World | p. 185 |
| The Origin and Early Forms of American History | p. 195 |
| The Eighteenth-Century Quest for a new Historiography | p. 199 |
| The Reassessment of Historical Order and Truth | p. 199 |
| New Views on Historical Truth | p. 201 |
| New Grand Interpretations: Progress in History | p. 205 |
| New Grand Interpretations: The Cyclical Pattern | p. 210 |
| Three National Responses | p. 215 |
| The British Blend of Erudition, Elegance, and Empiricism | p. 215 |
| Enlightenment Historiography in a German Key | p. 217 |
| Recording the Birth of the American Nation | p. 224 |
| Historians as Interpreters of Progress and Nation-I | p. 228 |
| German Historians: The Causes of Truth and National Unity | p. 229 |
| France: Historians, the Nation, and Liberty | p. 238 |
| Historians as Interpreters of Progress and Nation-II | p. 248 |
| English Historiography in the Age of Revolution | p. 248 |
| Historians and the Building of the American Nation | p. 255 |
| Historiography's "Golden Age" | p. 261 |
| A First Prefatory Note to Modern Historiography (1860-1914) | p. 268 |
| History and the Quest for a Uniform Science | p. 272 |
| Comte's Call to Arms and the Response | p. 272 |
| The German and English Responses to Positivist Challenges | p. 278 |
| The Peculiar American Synthesis | p. 286 |
| The Discovery of Economic Dynamics | p. 291 |
| An Economic Perspective on the Past | p. 291 |
| Karl Marx: Paneconomic Historiography | p. 293 |
| Economic History after Marx | p. 297 |
| Historians Encounter the Masses | p. 303 |
| Jubilant and Dark Visions | p. 303 |
| Social History as Institutional History | p. 306 |
| The American "New History": Call for a Democratic History | p. 313 |
| The Problem of World History | p. 319 |
| Historiography Between Two World Wars (1918-39) | p. 323 |
| The Twentieth-Century Context | p. 323 |
| Challenges to Historians | p. 324 |
| Historicism: From Dominance to Crisis | p. 327 |
| Historians and the War Guilt Debate | p. 332 |
| History Writing in Liberal Democracies (1918-39) | p. 334 |
| American Historiography after the "Great War" | p. 334 |
| American Progressive History | p. 335 |
| Other Social Histories | p. 338 |
| England: Historiography in a Fading Empire | p. 342 |
| French Historians: The Revolutionary Tradition and a New Vision of the Past | p. 343 |
| Historiography and the Grand Ideologies | p. 347 |
| Italian Fascism and Historiography (1922-43) | p. 347 |
| German Historians in the Weimar Republic and Hitler's Reich | p. 348 |
| The Soviet Union: The Imagined Future as the Guide for History | p. 351 |
| American Historiography after 1945 | p. 356 |
| New Realities and Traditional Horizons | p. 356 |
| Historiographical Repercussions of America's New Status | p. 358 |
| Historiography as Call for Reform | p. 363 |
| History in the Scientific Mode | p. 369 |
| History in the Language of Numbers | p. 369 |
| Reshaping Economic History | p. 373 |
| Growing Dissent: Narrativism | p. 378 |
| Psychohistory: Promise and Problems | p. 382 |
| Transformations in English and French Historiography | p. 387 |
| Voices in the War Guilt Debate | p. 387 |
| History Writing in Post-imperial England | p. 387 |
| Traditional and New French Historical Perspectives | p. 388 |
| Marxist Historiography in the Soviet Union and Western Democracies | p. 395 |
| The Problems and the End of the Soviet Union's Marxism | p. 395 |
| Marxist Historical Theory in the West | p. 397 |
| Historiography in the Aftermath of Fascism | p. 401 |
| Historical Perspectives in Postwar Italy | p. 401 |
| History for and of a New Germany | p. 402 |
| World History Between Vision and Reality | p. 408 |
| The Multiple Cultures Model | p. 408 |
| Progress and Westernization | p. 410 |
| World System Theories | p. 414 |
| Recent Historiography: Fundamental Challenges and Their Aftermath | p. 417 |
| The Maturation of the New History | p. 417 |
| History and Two Visions of Postmodernity | p. 420 |
| The New Cultural History | p. 425 |
| Prospects | p. 427 |
| Notes | p. 431 |
| List of Abbreviations | p. 443 |
| Bibliography | p. 445 |
| Index of Persons and Anonymous Works | p. 481 |
| Index of Subjects | p. 497 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
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