A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century - Hardcover

Burrow, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375413111 ISBN 13: 9780375413117

Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2008

Synopsis

This unprecedented book by one of Britain’s most admired historians describes the intellectual impact that the study and consideration of history has had in the Western world over the past 2,500 years.

Treating the practice of history not as an isolated pursuit but as an aspect of human society and an essential part of the culture of Europe and America, John Burrow magnificently brings to life and explains the distinctive qualities found in the work of historians from the ancient Egyptians and Greeks to the present, including Livy, Tacitus, Bede, Froissart, Clarendon, Gibbon, Macaulay, Michelet, Prescott and Parkman. The author sets out not to give us the history of academic discipline but a history of choices: the choice of pasts, and the ways they have been demarcated, investigated, presented and even sometimes learned from as they have changed according to political, religious, cultural, and (often most important) partisan and patriotic circumstances. Burrow aims, as well, to change our perceptions of the crucial turning points in the history of history, allowing the ideas that historians have had about both their own times and their founding civilizations to emerge with unexpected freshness.

Burrow argues that looking at the history of history is one of the most interesting ways we have to understand the past. Certainly, this volume stands alone in its ambition, scale and fascination.

About this title

Review:

"Burrow marshals a lifetime of knowledge and guides the reader effortlessly across the ages." --Time

"A fascinating compendium." --The New Yorker

"A triumph. . . . Reminds us of how often the narratives of the great historians resemble works of literature and of how important a secure grasp of historical fact can be to the progress of culture and the fate of nations." --The Wall Street Journal

"Absorbingly informative. . . . An exemplar of how history should be written. Witty, scholarly and, above all, fair." --The Times (London)

About the Author:

John Burrow was Professor of Intellectual History at the University of Sussex before becoming Professor of European Thought at Oxford. His earlier books include Evolution and Society: A Study in Victorian Social Theory; A Liberal Descent: Victorian Historians and the English Past, which won the Wolfson Prize for History; Gibbon; and The Crisis of Reason: European Thought, 1848–1914. He is a Fellow of the British Academy; an Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford; and in 2008 will be Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Williams College in Massachusetts.

About this edition

• Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0375413111
• ISBN 13: 9780375413117
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 517