In Defence of History

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Evans discusses the cases of David Abraham and Paul de Man at relevant places in his narrative, but gives more space to the most serious, that of holocaust denial.

It gave me a nostalgic feeling for my first year at University studying history and reminded my why I choose to study it. Where Kansteiner sees inconsistency between Evans’ assertion that sources may allow a spectrum of interpretations and his rejection of the idea that contrary interpretations may be equally valid, one may instead see a discursive give and take between a professional and a school of thought that was, and still is, used to discredit his profession. Contrary, perhaps, to the impression given in the present reply to critics, the book has met with a very positive response from reviewers and others. Ini boleh dilihat antaranya sewaktu Evans membahaskan persoalan kausaliti di dalam penulisan sejarah dan bagaimana satu-satu sebab di dahulukan oleh sang sejarahwan dan sebab lain dikemudiankan. Menurut Evans, dengan kemunculan bidang-bidang baru seperti feminisme, homoseksualiti, peristiwa holocaust, pascakolonialisme dan yang sepertinya di dalam bidang humanitas, satunya-satunya definisi sejarah yang terpakai untuk kesemua bidang baru ini adalah: perubahan dari zaman ke zaman.He has little patience with those who seek to defend deniers (on grounds of free speech, mainly), maintaining that to be a historian worthy of being taken seriously, it is necessary to respect the truth. Despite this, the book stands as an excellent starting point for understanding the theory of history and modern challenges to empirical fact. I took a doctorate in History long ago, and I still believe with Evans that knowledge (some, not all) about the past is accessible and that there are professional techniques for recovering, arranging,and presenting the past that are both valuable and effective. If Evans' procedure in dealing with texts, source material and key questions is what historians mean by scholarly humility they will be disappointed to find that it is not widely imitated outside their own discipline.

Indeed, Evans explicitly sees the wave of postmodern criticism as parallel to the rise of other historical critiques and methodologies, be they philological, psychological, economic or linguistic.Kansteiner reminds us that even if the individual historian is a relatively marginal social figure, their work can still reinforce greater institutional and cultural power.

I would have given this three stars, because it is very complex at times and Evans' argument isn't quite as clearly put as I would have liked (largely because I struggle with the whole concept of Postmodernism, and he doesn't really explain it well). This book does not analyse a specific event in history, it analyses Historians and the various different forms of approaching history in the profession of an Historian! Doesn't a historian's scholarship include enough O-level French to distinguish between 'Rien n'existe hors du language' and the much more troubling assertion Derrida actually made? Pasca-modenis telah terlebih anggar kemampuan sang sejarahwan dan terkurang anggar kecerdikan khalayak pembaca. While there are weak points to this book, some of which have already been acknowledged above, Kansteiner ignores one crucial aspect of the work.Penghujung buku ini penulis mengendurkan kritikannya dengan menunjukkan bagaimana pasca-modenisme memang ada mendatangkan manfaat kepada bidang historiografi terutama di dalam mengembangkan daya imaginatif satu-satu karya sejarah tersebut – namun itu hanyalah untuk seketika. In 1994 he was awarded the Hamburg Medal for Art and Science for cultural services to the city, and in 2015 received the British Academy Leverhulme Medal, awarded every three years for a significant contribution to the Humanities or Social Sciences. This is incredibly refreshing, and I hope historians and readers alike will take the admonition to heart.

The amendments and additions incorporated into this article in addition to the text of the first version (March 1998) take account of additional reviews and discussions of the British edition of the book, published by Granta Books in paperback in September 1998; the American edition, In Defense of History, published by W.

It is depressing to think that this uninformed yet totally self-confident work of naive provincialism should come from close to the heartlands of English culture. Evans defends this commitment to historical knowledge from the attacks of postmodernist critics who see all judgments as subjective.