Turning Points in Historiography

by Wang, Q. Edward; Iggers, Georg G.

• ISBN13: 9781580460972
• ISBN10: 1580460976
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-12-01
• Publisher: Univ of Rochester Pr

Summary

Until recently almost all histories of historiography have focused on national developments or at best introduced a comparative note from a limited Western perspective. Only in the last few years have there been serious attempts to transcend these borders. The present volume examines turning points in historical thought in a variety of cultures. The essays in the first half of the book deal with fundamental reorientations in historical thinking in the pre-modern period since Antiquity, specifically in ancient Greece and China and in medieval Christian Europe, the Islamic world and again China. The essays all proceed from the premise that historical thought in none of these cultures was static but underwent profound changes over time. The essays in the second part deal with historical writing beginning with the professionalization of history in the nineteenth century. National history researched and composed around a master narrative constituted a major turning point in this period. Although the new paradigm emerged in the West, it was broadly accepted by historians throughout the world.in the twentieth century. Individual chapters deal with conceptions of scientific history in the West, a comparison of national histories in Japan, France, and the United States, and the invention of Chinese, African and Indian national histories; finally the critiques of the modern paradigm in postmodernist and postcolonial theory and a consideration of the shortcomings of these critiques.BR>Georg Iggers is Professor Emeritus of History at the State University of New York at Buffalo; Q. Edward Wang is Associate Professor of History at Rowan University.

Author Biography

Q. Edward Wang is Professor of History at Rowan University Georg Iggers is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the State University of New York at Buffalo

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Introduction	p. 1
The Invention of History: From Homer to Herodotus	p. 19
The Ch'in Unification (221 B.C.) in Chinese Historiography	p. 31
From Ancient to Medieval Historical Thinking	p. 45
New Directions in Northern Sung Historical Thinking (960-1126)	p. 59
Turning Points in Islamic Historical Practice	p. 89
The Historicization of Classical Leaning in Ming-Ch'ing China	p. 101
Conceptions of Scientific History in the Nineteenth-Century West	p. 147
National Histories and World Systems: Writing Japan, France, and the United States	p. 163
China's Search for National History	p. 185
Nationalism and African Historiography	p. 209
The Subaltern School and the Ascendancy of Indian History	p. 237
A Critique of the Postmodern Turn in Western Historiography	p. 271
Postmodernism and Chinese History	p. 287
Postscript	p. 325
Contributors	p. 339
Glossary	p. 343
Index	p. 353
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.