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Product Description
In this volume, English historian Richard Evans offers a defence of the importance of his craft. At a time of deep scepticism about our ability to learn anything from the past, even to recapture any serious sense of past cultures and ways of life, Evans shows us why history is both possible and necessary. His demolition of the wilder claims of post-modern historians, who deny the possibility of any realistic grasp of history, seeks to be witty and well-balanced. He takes us into the historians' workshop to show us just how good history gets written, and explains the deadly political dangers of losing a historical perspective on the way we live our lives. This new edition contains an extensive afterword by the author.
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
39 of 41 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have re-read this book several times while in education, and it has restored my enthusiasm for academic work at times when the prevalence of post-structuralist theory in universities has left me thoroughly despondent. Evans is an acute critic, generous as well as exacting, and his writing is entertaining even when covering the most arcane philosophy. This book successfully unites a keen awareness of the theory of history with a pragmatic appreciation of its practice. Members of any discipline in which reading and writing are important (I come from an English literature background) can learn a lot, and take a lot of reassurance, from this rebuttal to relativism. Incidentally, the final chapter of the revised edition, in which Evans takes on his unfriendly critics, is one of the funniest shows of debunking available. A splendid book.
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Evans' book is not only a superb general introduction to the idea of history, written in a non-stuffy or academic style, but a useful reminder of why it is such a daft idea to treat history as if it were literary theory, and attempt to view it through postmodern eyes. I read this just after I read Keith Jenkins' somewhat depressing introduction to postmodernist history - 'Rethinking History', and it was therefore an extremely uplifiting experience (especially as I was about to start a history degree at university!) Incidentally, Jenkins' response to this book in 'Why History?: Ethics and Postmodernity' is worth checking out, though I found it a little weak and seeming to miss vital points about historiography, as postemodernists so often seem to.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a great historical book, which offers critical judgements and forces one to address your basic assumptions about the fundamental concepts and rules of history (E.g. cause and effect). It was certainly offered a useful insight and offered useful critical and well reasoned evaluations. My only criticism is that it focused perhaps too much on the literal "defense" of history and countering arguments, rather than offering a synthesis account.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
fabulous
really great book, divided into the same sections that Carr's What is History? with a new Introduction by Richard J Evans. Reading both really prepared me for history at Oxford.
Published 8 months ago by dwiendle
If History needs defending, this is the one to do it
Professor Richard Evans brings to the task impecabble credentials, wide experience, and, I suspect, not a little relish.
The hosts of Midian are smitten from sight. Read more
The hosts of Midian are smitten from sight. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Xenophon
Evans' Last Post for Post-Modernism
History teaches us nothing, Sting once sang. Did he read any post-modern theorists? As a former English teacher, perhaps he did. But it doesn't matter. Read more
Published 10 months ago by F Henwood
Postmodernism
The book challenges the self-designated left-wing radicalism of postmodernists. And the challenge came from a leftist. Read more
Published 15 months ago by George Economou
Interesting but long-winded
In Defence of History aims to take stock of forty years of historical theory and practice after Carr's ground-setting What is History?. Read more
Published 16 months ago by reader 451
A Strong Defence
The dreary trite pseudo-`insights' of post-modernism reappear again; this time with their feeble attempts to turn history into just another `text'. Read more
Published on 21 Oct 2008 by David Hadley
The day I fell in love with Science...
The day I fell in love with Science was a funny day, weird in that I don't remember it. We had an on-off relationship going on for a while, for so long I don't remember. Read more
Published on 18 Aug 2007 by A. Tatton
A great defence of history and a great defense of the truth.
Somehow postmodernist theory has gotten into the main stream of academia. Their grand, intricate, convoluted theories, that when applied, actually don't work, are being preached by... Read more
Published on 4 Mar 2007 by Sean Gainford
Evans misses the point
In Defence of history fails to do what it's title suggests. The main reason for that is he fails to properly understand the post-structuralist challenge presented to his unabashed... Read more
Published on 11 Mar 2002 by bowenpgf@hotmail.com
fanastic start point for any student of history
Evans book justifies the historical method of thinking about the evidence and sources a historian has in front of him to make a cognitive analysis of the past. Read more
Published on 21 Feb 2001
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