Threads and Traces: True False Fictive - Softcover

Ginzburg, Carlo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520274482 ISBN 13: 9780520274488

Publisher: University of California Press, 2012

Synopsis

Carlo Ginzburg's brilliant and timely new essay collection takes a bold stand against naive positivism and allegedly sophisticated neo-skepticism. It looks deeply into questions raised by decades of post-structuralism: What constitutes historical truth? How do we draw a boundary between truth and fiction? What is the relationship between history and memory? How do we grapple with the historical conventions that inform, in different ways, all written documents? In his answers, Ginzburg peels away layers of subsequent readings and interpretations that envelop every text to make a larger argument about history and fiction. Interwoven with compelling autobiographical references, "Threads and Traces" bears moving witness to Ginzburg's life as a European Jew, the abiding strength of his scholarship, and his deep engagement with the historian's craft.

About this title

Review:

"These essays humanely and generously explore the question of how history ought to be written."--Jonathan Beckman"The Literary Review" (04/01/2012)

"This is a brilliant text, the product of a scholar of rare breadth and knowledge."--Ben McDonald, University of Melbourne"Melbourne Historical Jrnl" (12/01/2012)

"No other living historian approaches the range of [Ginzburg's] erudition. Every page of Threads and Traces, his latest work to appear in English, offers an illustration of it."-- (04/26/2012)

"Ginzburg's range is remarkable . . . rich in references to and insights about diverse historical perspectives."-- (09/19/2011)

"A collection of essays by the profoundly original, intellectually wide-ranging, Italian-Jewish historian Carlo Ginzburg . . . an illuminating collection of chapters, deftly translated from the original Italian by Anne C. and John Tedeschi."-- (04/13/2012)

"Surprising pace, intellectual range, and learned discourse is typical throughout the book. . . . Artfully constructed essays."-- (12/11/2012)

About the Author:

Carlo Ginzburg is retired from Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa (Italy). He is the author of numerous books that have been translated into English including The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0520274482
• ISBN 13: 9780520274488
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336