Historiography

by Breisach, Ernst

• ISBN13: 9780226072838
• ISBN10: 0226072835
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-12-30
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

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
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