HIS 4960: History and Social Science Seminar: Books

Over 300 contributors from around the world have composed critical assessments of historians from the beginning of historical writing to the present day, including individuals from related disciplines like Jürgen Habermas and Clifford Geertz, whose theoretical contributions have informed historical debate.

Fifty Key Thinkers on Historyis a superb guide to historiography through the ages. The cross-section of debates and thinkers covered is unique in its breadth, taking in figures from ancient China, Greece and Rome, through the Middle Ages, to contemporary Europe, America, Africa and Australia.

In Fortunes of History Donald R. Kelley offers an authoritative examination of historical writing during the “long nineteenth century. He provides a comprehensive analysis of the theories and practices of British, French, German, Italian, and American schools of historical thought, their principal figures, and their distinctive methods and self-understandings.

Entries--followed by cross-references, texts, references, and contributor's name--are of three types: brief biographical entries on individual historians, or works and genres not associated with one individual; longer surveys of national or regional historiographies; and topical articles on themes, periods, and -isms.

Doing History is an indispensable handbook to historical research. This text's "soup to nuts" approach to researching and writing about history addresses every step of the process, from locating your sources and gathering information, to writing clearly and making proper use of various citation styles to avoid plagiarism.

In this concise introduction, Stephen Davies explains what historians mean by empiricism, examines the origins, growth and persistence of empirical methods, and shows how students can apply these methods to their own work.

The Logic of History reveals the rational basis for historians' descriptions, interpretations and explanations of past events. The author explains and discusses postmodern criticisms of history, providing students and teachers of history with a renewed validation of their practice.

In examining the effects of postmodernism, the illusions of cosmopolitanism, A. J. P. Taylor and revisionism, and Francis Fukuyama's "end of history," Himmelfarb enriches her illuminating exploration of the myriad ways--new and old--in which historians make sense of the past.

At the core of his survey lies the realization that objective and disinterested histories as well as historical 'truth' are unachievable. The past and questions about the nature of history remain interminably open to new and disobedient approaches. The author's committed and radical study presents new ways of 'thinking history', a new methodology and philosophy and their impact on historical practice.

A Short Guide to Writing About History stresses thinking and writing like a historian. This engaging and practical little text helps the readers get beyond merely compiling dates and facts; it teaches them how to incorporate their own ideas into their papers and to tell a story about history that interests them and their peers.

In this book, ten internationally renowned scholars, writing from a range of historical vantage points, answer Carr's question for a new generation of historians: What does it mean to study history at the start of the Twenty-first century?

"The History Highway" offers the broadest, most current coverage of the astonishing amount of historical information available on the Internet: provides detailed, easy-to-use, and up-to-date information on more than 3000 web sites and overs U.S. and World history and all sub-fields.

This practical book, drawn from decades of experience, is an indispensable guide to writing history. It advises writers on how much research is necessary, how to manage notes and files, when you should start writing, whether to use the first person and whether to structure your work chronologically or thematically.

In The Philosophy of History, Voltaire takes a philosophical look through history from different races of man to legislators who have spoken in the name of the Gods. This enthralling essay is an essential read for scholars and students of the Enlightenment.

The essays collected here straddle four decades of work in both historiography and Marxist theory, combining source-based historical work in a wide range of languages with sophisticated discussion of Marxs categories. The essays demonstrate the importance of reintegrating theory with history and of bringing history back into historical materialism.