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二十世纪的历史学：从科学的客观性到后现代的挑战
本书考察了关于历史和历史学性质的思想的深刻变化，以及自19世纪专业历史学出现以来作为其基础的基本原则的发展，描述了二战以后新的社会科学如何改变历史学，特别是近几十年来后现代主义思想对历史学的巨大挑战，并得出结论：当代的历史学正从经典的、宏观的形式走向微观史、文化史和日常生活史。本书是新版，增加了题为“21世纪初的回顾”的后记，考察了从后现代主义向新的社会科学方法的进展，特别注意文化因素和全球化问题。
266 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
35 people are currently reading
438 people want to read
About the author
Georg G. Iggers
29 books8 followersGeorg G. Iggers was an American historian of modern Europe, historiography, and European intellectual history.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
March 6, 2015
About as compelling as a phone book, albeit more informative.
Walks the reader through the history of historiography, starting with its professionalization with Leopold von Ranke in early 19th century Germany, to the formation of the social sciences during the late 19th century, and on through postmodernism/linguistic turn.
Unless you're incredibly passionate about the subject or plan on going into academia, read the sparknotes version.
Walks the reader through the history of historiography, starting with its professionalization with Leopold von Ranke in early 19th century Germany, to the formation of the social sciences during the late 19th century, and on through postmodernism/linguistic turn.
Unless you're incredibly passionate about the subject or plan on going into academia, read the sparknotes version.
January 12, 2017
Muhakkak eksiklikleri vardır. 3 senedir sosyoloji gözlüğü ile bakan biri olarak tarihe alışmak zor bir süreç olsa da bana keyifli ve basit bir dille temel tarihyazımlarını ve arka planındaki siyasal olayları aktarabildiği için yeterli buldum.
January 28, 2011
Iggers does an excellent job of putting together a century's worth of historiography into a concise 200 page book. He separates his topics in three different parts. The first deals with the emergence of history as a professional science. He begins with his discription of Leopold Ranke and his aim to turn history into a “rigorous science practiced by professionally trained historians” (p. 25). Ranke was responsible in assembling, institutionalizing, successively practicing, and passing on to future historians the core of professional historiography. This advancement legitimized history, successfully making it both a scientific discipline and a source of culture. History would be done by trained professionals and would become more accessible to the public.
Part two deals with the social sciences of history and their role in France, Germany, and Marx histories. The influence of the French Annales School of Historians radically modified the conception that history progressed along a one-dimensional timeline from the past to the future. There no longer existed a unified historical development in which a grand narrative, a metahistory, of man could be based. To replace it, French historians theorized that there were in fact three different times: the “almost stationary time of the Mediterranean as a geographic space (longue durée), the slow time of changes in social and economic structures (conjonctures), and the fast time of political events (événements)”(p. 57). This method of historiography allowed history from all perspectives; thus the emergence of microhistory. The Annales methodology was broadly influential in leading away from the diplomatic and other forms of political history towards an emphasis on economic and social change focusing on the multiple histories of cultures. For German social history, these historians analyzed the social and economic forces that may shape individuals and social movements. As for the Marxists, they emphasized on the economy and production and how it underpinned the history of social movement. (Apologies for the quick summary...parts of this review was taken from a report I have done for this book; hence the longer segment about the Annales).
The third part of Iggers book discusses the viewpoint of the post-modernists and the impact on historical research. According to post-modernists, the truth is dialectical; the search for the truth is an ongoing process. Prominent post-modern historian Hayden White posited that historiography does not diverge from fiction, but that it is a form of fiction (p. 118). White believes that “historical narratives are verbal fictions, the contents of which are as much invented as found and the forms of which have more in common with their counterparts in literature than they have with those in the sciences” (p. 119). While a rather harsh perspective of White, post-modernist historiography tolerates new opportunities for historians. Historians are able to deconstruct previous histories while adding their own perspectives to historical scholarship. The post-modernist historians reconcile history and the social sciences proffering a new historiography to better interpret the past.
All in all, I would recommend this book for anyone interested in historiographical methods that developed during the 20th century. Although it reads more like an annotated bibliography and, in my opinion, a little too harsh on the critique on post-modernist history, it is a well informed book. It encompasses information on numerous historians throughout the twentieth century which provides, as aforementioned, a great bibliography on historiography of the 20th century.
Part two deals with the social sciences of history and their role in France, Germany, and Marx histories. The influence of the French Annales School of Historians radically modified the conception that history progressed along a one-dimensional timeline from the past to the future. There no longer existed a unified historical development in which a grand narrative, a metahistory, of man could be based. To replace it, French historians theorized that there were in fact three different times: the “almost stationary time of the Mediterranean as a geographic space (longue durée), the slow time of changes in social and economic structures (conjonctures), and the fast time of political events (événements)”(p. 57). This method of historiography allowed history from all perspectives; thus the emergence of microhistory. The Annales methodology was broadly influential in leading away from the diplomatic and other forms of political history towards an emphasis on economic and social change focusing on the multiple histories of cultures. For German social history, these historians analyzed the social and economic forces that may shape individuals and social movements. As for the Marxists, they emphasized on the economy and production and how it underpinned the history of social movement. (Apologies for the quick summary...parts of this review was taken from a report I have done for this book; hence the longer segment about the Annales).
The third part of Iggers book discusses the viewpoint of the post-modernists and the impact on historical research. According to post-modernists, the truth is dialectical; the search for the truth is an ongoing process. Prominent post-modern historian Hayden White posited that historiography does not diverge from fiction, but that it is a form of fiction (p. 118). White believes that “historical narratives are verbal fictions, the contents of which are as much invented as found and the forms of which have more in common with their counterparts in literature than they have with those in the sciences” (p. 119). While a rather harsh perspective of White, post-modernist historiography tolerates new opportunities for historians. Historians are able to deconstruct previous histories while adding their own perspectives to historical scholarship. The post-modernist historians reconcile history and the social sciences proffering a new historiography to better interpret the past.
All in all, I would recommend this book for anyone interested in historiographical methods that developed during the 20th century. Although it reads more like an annotated bibliography and, in my opinion, a little too harsh on the critique on post-modernist history, it is a well informed book. It encompasses information on numerous historians throughout the twentieth century which provides, as aforementioned, a great bibliography on historiography of the 20th century.
July 16, 2021
Opera fundamentalmente como un muy sintético resumen de corrientes y posturas historiográficas en el siglo XX. El foco está puesto más en la segunda parte, del giro lingüístico en adelante, siendo la primera más bien la base que lo otro va a venir a destruir.
Medio soso, creo que el punto fuerte son las conclusiones en donde se pone un poco más especulativo con el futuro de la profesión histórica. De cualquier forma ya quedó un poco viejo.
Medio soso, creo que el punto fuerte son las conclusiones en donde se pone un poco más especulativo con el futuro de la profesión histórica. De cualquier forma ya quedó un poco viejo.
August 19, 2023
Una excelente síntesis de la principales corrientes historiográficas. El autor explica de manera simple y directa los principales problemas, debates y lecturas de cada una de la corrientes y su trayectoria en el tiempo.
July 1, 2018
What Happened, and Why?
It took me just over a year to finish the Historiography textbook not because it wasn’t interesting or useful, but because this was the book I kept in my bag and pulled out to read when I had an odd hour sitting on a train, or in a waiting room, or before a meeting started. It was always the “other” book I was reading, and I finished it in chunks, often a paragraph at a time.
I picked it up last summer because I was about to begin teaching high school History courses for the first time in my career after having been an English teacher for the previous 9 years. I wanted a more thorough grounding in the history of History, so to speak. How had the interpretation of events in the past changed over time?
The answer is that, in the 20th century, it went from grand scale explanations to micro size interpretations. History as a discipline was always narrative in nature, but sought for objective explanations of events in the past. It was thought at one point that history was a process which led to an inevitable outcome, yet this idea becomes problematic over time.
In the last century, History writers first focused on key figures—kings, presidents, charismatic leaders. As time went on, writers began to center the nation-state as the central figure of History. The history of the world was a history of the development of its countries. This eventually gave way to a more institutional interpretation of events; History was less about important people in important countries, more about the important structures in important countries. After all, what is a nation-state but a complex system of institutions like the economy, government, and the various classes of people?
Of course, this gave way to the idea of a history from below. This is the argument that regular individuals with independent values comprise these systems, and so regular people must be at the center of history. Yet this leads to a more social science and cultural anthropological consideration of the past, and lends History as a discipline to more subjective interpretations than objective reports of what happened, and why. All of this, plus the post-modern literary notion that language is a self-referencing system and the words we write in a narrative explanation cannot reflect an outside reality, and it becomes difficult to know whether or not we can actually understand history to a degree that it can still be called true.
This is pretty much where we find ourselves at the start of the 21st century.
This book was challenging and engaging. It’s not light reading by any means, and I’m still left with questions. For instance, is there a theory of history that we can use to test hypotheses and predictions about events in the world today? Does each iteration of academic writing about History provide useful tools in the teaching of this content, or should the older methods be abandoned entirely? Iggers, using a German precision with his words to relate complicated concepts, does a good job of helping the reader to understand the broad arc of History as a discipline in the 20th century. With that said, I think having someone else to talk with and bounce ideas about the text off of might have helped me reach a 5 star rating. I just don’t think I can get there on my own.
It took me just over a year to finish the Historiography textbook not because it wasn’t interesting or useful, but because this was the book I kept in my bag and pulled out to read when I had an odd hour sitting on a train, or in a waiting room, or before a meeting started. It was always the “other” book I was reading, and I finished it in chunks, often a paragraph at a time.
I picked it up last summer because I was about to begin teaching high school History courses for the first time in my career after having been an English teacher for the previous 9 years. I wanted a more thorough grounding in the history of History, so to speak. How had the interpretation of events in the past changed over time?
The answer is that, in the 20th century, it went from grand scale explanations to micro size interpretations. History as a discipline was always narrative in nature, but sought for objective explanations of events in the past. It was thought at one point that history was a process which led to an inevitable outcome, yet this idea becomes problematic over time.
In the last century, History writers first focused on key figures—kings, presidents, charismatic leaders. As time went on, writers began to center the nation-state as the central figure of History. The history of the world was a history of the development of its countries. This eventually gave way to a more institutional interpretation of events; History was less about important people in important countries, more about the important structures in important countries. After all, what is a nation-state but a complex system of institutions like the economy, government, and the various classes of people?
Of course, this gave way to the idea of a history from below. This is the argument that regular individuals with independent values comprise these systems, and so regular people must be at the center of history. Yet this leads to a more social science and cultural anthropological consideration of the past, and lends History as a discipline to more subjective interpretations than objective reports of what happened, and why. All of this, plus the post-modern literary notion that language is a self-referencing system and the words we write in a narrative explanation cannot reflect an outside reality, and it becomes difficult to know whether or not we can actually understand history to a degree that it can still be called true.
This is pretty much where we find ourselves at the start of the 21st century.
This book was challenging and engaging. It’s not light reading by any means, and I’m still left with questions. For instance, is there a theory of history that we can use to test hypotheses and predictions about events in the world today? Does each iteration of academic writing about History provide useful tools in the teaching of this content, or should the older methods be abandoned entirely? Iggers, using a German precision with his words to relate complicated concepts, does a good job of helping the reader to understand the broad arc of History as a discipline in the 20th century. With that said, I think having someone else to talk with and bounce ideas about the text off of might have helped me reach a 5 star rating. I just don’t think I can get there on my own.
October 28, 2021
A good introduction that is quite generally used as textbook in university courses on historiography and philosophy of history classes (in my case too), though I personally think it's too short and therefore often to flies over specific topics where a more in-depth and fleshed out treatment would have been preferred and the problem is that a good alternative (or at least, not one I am aware of) is still not at hand either.
Another problem is that it stops at 2000 so for the remaining 20 years, you will have to look elsewhere so it will not bring you up to speed. Far from it.
Another problem is that it stops at 2000 so for the remaining 20 years, you will have to look elsewhere so it will not bring you up to speed. Far from it.
February 14, 2023
Shrnutí zásadních světových proudů historiografie 19. a 20. století velmi nenásilnou a čtivou formou. Některá díla v době vydání ještě nebyla přeložena do ČJ, takže je i zajímavá konfrontace autorského překladu vs. pozdějších překladů. Milým potěšením je předmluva vypovídající mj. o osobním vztahu autora k ČR (ČSR). Občas narazíme na překlep či nedokonalý překlad věty, ve finále ale velmi dobrý dojem z knihy i obrany historiografie.
January 18, 2024
Interessant? Ja. Kreeg ik er hoofdpijn van? Jazeker.
October 17, 2022
POV: osm knížek pozadu a státnice v dohledu
April 5, 2021
Διαφωτιστικό για ιστορικούς, αφού περιέχει πολλές πληροφορίες για την Ιστοριογραφία του 20ου αιώνα. Μειονέκτημά του η όχι και τόσο καλή γραφή του συγγραφέα που κουράζει τον αναγνώστη.
April 13, 2014
Σημαντικό βιβλίο για την κατανόηση του σημείου στο οποίο έχει φτάσει η ιστοριογραφία στην αλλαγή της χιλιετίας.
Προσεγμένη μετάφραση αλλά οι αβλεψίες δεν είναι λίγες.
Προσεγμένη μετάφραση αλλά οι αβλεψίες δεν είναι λίγες.
Read
February 12, 2015extremely tough to get through but it does give a great overview of the tendencies in modern historical research
February 21, 2025
Ίσως το καλύτερο βιβλίο που διάβασα φέτος, επεξηγηματικό, κατανοητό και πολύ ενδιαφέρον (βέβαια, η γραφή είναι όντως στεγνή, και άρα απευθύνεται κυρίως σε άτομα που ενδιαφέρονται για το θέμα).
August 14, 2023
Glad to find my old history textbook still as dry as when I first read it 12 years ago. At times I wondered if I had hit new levels of stupidity as I struggled to find meaning in some of Igger's sentences, only to later curse at the needlessly complicated way in which the author had chosen to make the most simplest of points.
Jokes aside, this book does provide a very good overview of the the evolution of historical thought and writing, particularly useful for first year undergrads. How does one eliminate biasness and achieve objectivity in historical writing? Can history be a social science? What are the narratives that are dictating my approach to a topic? These are the kinds of questions that readers of this book will find themselves asking.
For me, it was a pretty interesting re-read. I realised that I had misinterpreted some of the arguments in this book when I first read it. There were also things I missed that I wished I had picked up on when I was a student.
Useful book, but a little boring.
Jokes aside, this book does provide a very good overview of the the evolution of historical thought and writing, particularly useful for first year undergrads. How does one eliminate biasness and achieve objectivity in historical writing? Can history be a social science? What are the narratives that are dictating my approach to a topic? These are the kinds of questions that readers of this book will find themselves asking.
For me, it was a pretty interesting re-read. I realised that I had misinterpreted some of the arguments in this book when I first read it. There were also things I missed that I wished I had picked up on when I was a student.
Useful book, but a little boring.
September 27, 2020
Surprisingly readable and engaging history of history, for those who basically are required to read it (because who would really do so otherwise?) – or have a really, really, really strong love of reading not just history but a history of the doing of history over the past hundred years.
But if you're going to read a book like that, this isn't a bad one. It's pretty easy to get through, and Iggers manages mostly to avoid the tendency of these sorts of books to devolve into laundry lists of authors and titles – although there's plenty of that, too.
Mainly, Iggers handily lays out the various schools of history as the profession has changed and democratized over the years, criticizing those he's less enthralled with – Marxism and postmodern linguistics, here's lookin' at you – while also praising the tendency toward inclusion and alternate ways of doing history those movements have sparked.
But if you're going to read a book like that, this isn't a bad one. It's pretty easy to get through, and Iggers manages mostly to avoid the tendency of these sorts of books to devolve into laundry lists of authors and titles – although there's plenty of that, too.
Mainly, Iggers handily lays out the various schools of history as the profession has changed and democratized over the years, criticizing those he's less enthralled with – Marxism and postmodern linguistics, here's lookin' at you – while also praising the tendency toward inclusion and alternate ways of doing history those movements have sparked.
September 3, 2024
2.75 rounded up?
had to check to see if he was dead before I wrote a review (rip).
this book is ... a lot. a lot of good information, a lot of name dropping, a lot of confusion. it's sometimes compelling, yet sometimes a slog.
I think he does what he sets out to do, and he does a relatively good job of it. however, I didn't have a real grasp on a lot of it until I "reread" it a second time. he's sometimes all over the place and it's easy to get lost. you get bogged down in the names and the abstracts and the nitty-gritty. a chart or something detailing the eras, schools, people, points, etc would've been helpful — not as a summarization, but as a tool to use throughout your time reading.
this is an obvious choice for historiography courses, and although it gave me multiple headaches (literally) I can see why it's a necessary read for historians.
had to check to see if he was dead before I wrote a review (rip).
this book is ... a lot. a lot of good information, a lot of name dropping, a lot of confusion. it's sometimes compelling, yet sometimes a slog.
I think he does what he sets out to do, and he does a relatively good job of it. however, I didn't have a real grasp on a lot of it until I "reread" it a second time. he's sometimes all over the place and it's easy to get lost. you get bogged down in the names and the abstracts and the nitty-gritty. a chart or something detailing the eras, schools, people, points, etc would've been helpful — not as a summarization, but as a tool to use throughout your time reading.
this is an obvious choice for historiography courses, and although it gave me multiple headaches (literally) I can see why it's a necessary read for historians.
October 3, 2021
This is a genealogy, a history of Western historiographical debates from the 19th to the end of the 20th century. It is highly focused in the history of History in Germany, France, America and to a lesser degree in Italy and other European countries. Iggers is humble to say that this is just a sample of the different historiographies around the world, which will need further research. It is an easy book to place oneself in the history of History, and how social, cultural, ideological and philosophical debates in North-Western Europe and America have played a role in its development. It is easy to read, but also a little plain in style. A good book for those who want to climb on step into the knowledge of history and how it is being made.
October 16, 2021
Una muy buena y sencilla introducción a las grandes corrientes historiográficas del siglo XX y al mismo tiempo una defensa de los valores de la ilustración y alerta de los peligros del exceso de relativismo. Para los que disfrutamos de estos debates pero no somos expertos en filosofía de la historia es un libro muy agradable. Además muy bien escrito y eso siempre se debe de reconocer.
September 6, 2019
A lot of fun, as I'm sure you can imagine... It cannot be put better than Tamarra K did in her review: "about as compelling as a phone book, albeit more informative". True, only read if you are serious about the subject.
July 12, 2022
too concise, poorly written, shoddy interpretation of marxist perspectives. also does the funny thing where, whilst rejecting the idea of a positive "historical progress", applies it to the progress of historical theory anyway. read something else.
December 7, 2025
Como manual introductorio de la historia de la "historia" cumple bien su función. Te presenta, a grandes rasgos, el origen, significado y críticas de los enfoques historiográficos. Se agradece la presentación nitida de la manera en que el postmodernismo impacta a esta disciplina.
September 3, 2018
Very confusing writing style. All of that could have been said with much less. Too many quotes per sentence.
September 12, 2019
I don't do well with post modernism, take me back a couple of centuries please.
July 4, 2022
te odio
November 29, 2022
one of the more accessible texts from my historiography class! would definitely recommend for those looking for a well-written, concise, accessible account of twentieth-century historiography.
June 10, 2023
odio a este hombre
July 3, 2023
Geschiedenis van de geschiedschrijving. Over hoe mensen dachten dat je geschiedenis moest schrijven: objectief of met een doel, met een focus op economie of cultuur.. etc.
October 27, 2023
Nice
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 2, 2023
Libro óptimo para empezar a comprender la historia de la historiografia occidental.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews