Voice and Vision: A Guide to Writing History and Other Serious Nonfiction - Softcover

Pyne, Stephen J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674060423 ISBN 13: 9780674060425

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2011

Synopsis

A Guide to Writing History and Other Serious Nonfiction

About this title

Review:

This engaging discussion of historical narrative is part meditation and part manual. It distills the experience, gained from wide and generous reading as well as prolific writing, of a master of the genre.--Harriet Ritvo, author of The Platypus and the Mermaid: And Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination

Voice and Vision is as much a tour de force of critical reading as it is an incomparable guide to the writing of history, a brilliant elaboration of the subtle dialect between 'art' and 'craft' in nonfiction prose.--Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums

Pyne offers a powerful and persuasive case for works that combine the techniques of great literature--including a novelist's eye for narrative, language, character development, and scene setting--with a historian's passion for factual accuracy and respect for the rules of evidence. This is a remarkable book.--Steven Mintz, author of Huck's Raft: A History of American Childhood

Philanthropists seeking ways to add meaning and consequence to the academic pursuit known as 'research and scholarship' could have a tremendous--and measurable--impact with one simple investment: purchase hundreds of copies of this book and distribute them to social science and humanities faculty and graduate students across the nation.--Patty Limerick, author of the essay "Dancing with Professors: The Trouble with Academic Prose"

The book is everything the author says a work of nonfiction ought to be: well written, clearly thought out, and full of specific examples (of what to do and what not to do). An essential tool for anyone who is attempting to write nonfiction, or even just thinking about it.-- (05/01/2009)

[Pyne's] book is a tour de force of critical commentary and explanation. Voice and Vision is an engaging literary performance in its own right.-- (02/03/2010)

About the Author:

Stephen J. Pyne is a Regents Professor at Arizona State University. He is the author of many books, including Smokechasing and Tending Fire.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0674060423
• ISBN 13: 9780674060425
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336