In Defence of History

by Richard J. Evans

In this volume, English historian Richard Evans offers a defence of the importance of his craft. At a time of deep scepticism about our ability to learn anything from the past, even to recapture any serious sense of past cultures and ways of life, Evans shows us why history is both possible and necessary. His demolition of the wilder claims of post-modern historians, who deny the possibility of any realistic grasp of history, seeks to be witty and well-balanced. He takes us into the historians' workshop to show us just how good history gets written, and explains the deadly political dangers of losing a historical perspective on the way we live our lives. This new edition contains an extensive afterword by the author.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Politics, Academic, Science, History and Politics

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Richard J. Evans is one of the world's leading historians of modern Germany. He was born in London in 1947. From 2008 to 2014 he was Regius Professor of History at Cambridge University, and from 2020 to 2017 President of Wolfson College, Cambridge. He served as Provost of Gresham College in the City of London from 2014 to 2020. 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. In 2000 he was the principal expert witness in the David Irving Holocaust Denial libel trial at the High Court in London, subsequently the subject of the film Denial. His books include Death in Hamburg (winner of the Wolfson History Prize), In Defence of History, The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power, and The Third Reich at War. His book The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815-1914, volume 7 of the Penguin History of Europe, was published in 2016. His most recent books are Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History (2019) and The Hitler Conspiracies: The Third Reich and the Paranoid Imagination (2020). In 2012 he was knighted for services to scholarship.

Reviews

[Sense of History]

There are few social environments where the toes are more sensitive than in academic circles. This is proved once again by the massive controversy this book has aroused amongst British historians. Richard Evans, distinguished professor of history at Cambridge, published it in 1997. It is a bit of a half-hearted attempt to write a new synthesis of where the study of history stands for, thirty years after the classics in that department by E. H. Carr and G.R. Elton.

Evans places himself more or less in the middle between those two predecessors, he praises both their strengths but also attacks their weaknesses. That's pretty exciting, but gradually his gaze or better his target shifts in the direction of the postmodernist gulf which according to him has undermined the foundations of the historic business since the 1970s. Evans especially attacks the most radical protagonists Hayden White and Frank Ankersmit on their assertion that reality is only linguistic, only text and discourse, and we never can reach the 'real' reality, in short, that there is no truth and thus all statements are accurate, which comes down to a complete relativism.

Evans contends that the practice of historic study proves this is wrong: the truth, the facts of the past indeed ARE attainable, by applying the correct methodology and when always understood as a preliminary result. " Through the sources we use, and the methods with which we handle them, we can, if we are very careful and thorough, approach a reconstruction of past reality that may be partial and provisional, and certainly will not be objective, but is nevertheless true."

I tend to follow Evans in this, but I must admit that his presentation of the postmodernists regularly is very caricatured (although he admits postmodernists also have added valuable new insights), and his statements sometimes are worded rather vaguely. It is therefore not surprising that after the publication of this book (in 1997) Evans drew fiercesome criticism of about the whole historical establishment in Great-Britain and America. In this edition he added an extensive epilogue (70 pages) in which he tries to parry the criticism. This epilogue makes painfully clear how difficult and delicate it remains to define and clearly articulate concepts and views in the study of history. It's a pity so much energy is invested in internal wars between historians and the like. Nevertheless, this is a very interesting read!

[Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

What’s best known about this book is Evans’s defense of history from postmodernism. But what’s interesting for us amateur readers of history is his general discussion of the many ways history is done. The book has a 12-page introduction and confines footnotes to the back, making it easier to read.

The author asks what history really is. Is it simply a record of politics? Of vast, impersonal forces? Of thought? Should historians stop looking for causes and concentrate on consequences? What does it mean that historians tell us what cannot be done, not what should be done? Most important, is it possible to establish historical truth at all?

These questions have a place in the study of history. But when postmodernism arrived on the scene some time ago, the cry to make history more like literature was a reaction to history’s tendency at the time to avoid narrative and stick to themes. All of this was the result of the popularity of social sciences models, and, unfortunately, those who issued the cry were seldom good writers themselves.

Evans discusses the drawback of postmodernism in history and its rejection of reason and progress as historical forces. The linguistic turn obliterated the distinction between primary and secondary sources. Truth and knowledge become merely the products of power. And if the world is just text, if reality boils down to writing, that reduces the historical record of poverty, torture and oppression to abstract concepts and effaces the real victims.

Yet postmodernism has, in other ways, put new life into history. It has after all made good writing respectable in historiography. It has opened up new areas of historical inquiry. The exposition of popular mentalities, the cultural dimensions of power and the exploration of gender are examples of new directions in history made possible by the postmodern critique.

Aside from the discussion of postmodernism, Evans helps make clear why history should remain a distinct subject of inquiry and what value it possesses. He quotes George M. Trevelyan:

The dead were and are not. Their place knows them no more, and is ours today. Yet they were once as real as we, and we shall tomorrow be shadows like them. […] The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth, once, on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone, one generation vanishing into another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cockcrow.

It is, as Evans makes clear in In Defense of History, toward the goal of knowing this past that so many ways of studying history have borne fruit.

[DoctorM · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a genre over-populated by blinkered (not to say ignorant)and choleric conservative enemies of some ill-defined "postmodernism", Evans' book stands out as a balanced and thoughtful look at what History as a discipline is and should be. 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. Evans mounts a defense of doing History that accepts and incorporates many of the points of postmodernist and poststructuralist thinkers, one that accepts parts of the critique of the discipline's foundations without giving up a belief that the past is knowable, even if not always with perfect clarity, and that there are clear and straightforward ways of approaching historical research. All in all, a book worth reading for anyone who takes History seriously and wants to understand why and how one does History.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an engaging work if you’re really interested in the theory and philosophy of history. Evans tackles almost every classic issue the study of history has to deal with: can we reach the past? Is an objective account possible? How important is causation? What’s the role of individuals? Etc. He builds on the work of E.H. Carr and G.R. Elton, but also corrects them. His plea for a moderate application of classic historical methods brings him in conflict with postmodernism. This philosophical current in its most extreme form has undermined the fundamentals of historical study, but Evans acknowledges it also has brought some valuable new insights. This kind of half-heartedness is typical for the whole work. Thus: interesting, but not a classic, and not a real introduction to the study of history.

[Ahmad Abdul Rahim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tersebutlah kisah bahawa sejarah adalah ditulis dengan ‘tangan’ Tuhan; cerita tentang peristiwa-peristiwa yang menimpa ‘anak-anak’-Nya yang terpilih, berjuang dan menderita demi menjulang ajaran Langit.

Kemudian, sekumpulan manusia membawa perisytiharan Langit ke lantai bumi yang landai. Atas nama Pencerahan mereka menggantikan penilaian Baik-Jahat dengan kayu ukur baharu: Budaya, Sistem, Masyarakat, Geografi...setapak demi setapak menuju kepada kemajuan dan keberadaban.

Fikir mereka, sejarah itu bergerak secara lurus, ibarat mata anak panah yang dilepaskan dari busur. Busur itu ‘tangan’ Tuhan; anak panah itu Kemanusiaan. Sasarannya? Bintang-bintang di atas.

Sekonyong-konyong lahirlah manusia baharu mendeklarasikan: Semua itu palsu! Makna di sebalik sejarah segalanya adalah ciptaan dan rekayasa manusia: mentalite, ideologie, paradigm. Langit tiada peduli dan Tuhan telah mati!

Tiada sejarah melainkan apa yang disebutkan oleh si penulis sejarah!

Kalian membahagi zaman kepada bagian-bagian kecil. Kalian mencerakinkan sebab-akibat kepada sosial, ekonomi, budaya dan politik. Kalian menelaah segelintir manusia-manusia dan merumus kesimpulan bagi baki majoriti yang lain.

Siapa kau, peniru suara Langit?!

Dunia hanya ditanggapi lewat bahasa. Dan, bahasa adalah rekayasa manusia.

Lantas: Tiada fakta, hanya tafsiran!

***

Aku perlu jujur untuk berkata ini: jikalau bukan kerana minatku kepada perbahasan historiografi, iaitu bidan sejarah kepada (penulisan) sejarah, buku ini adalah bernilai empat bintang paling tinggi.

Walaubagaiamanpun sudah agak banyak bahan bacaan historiografi yang sempat aku ladeni, tetapi ini adalah buku pertama yang aku dapati penulisnya begitu berani berhadapan dengan fenomena penyusupan masuk faham-faham pasca-modenisme di dalam bidang penulisan sejarah historiografi.

Penulis tidak segan untuk menamakan soldadu-soldadu pascamodenis yang ditujukan permusuhannya: Hayden White, Dominick La Capra, Beverly Southgate, Keith Jenkins.

Beliau juga tidak segan untuk mengkontradiksi rujukan-rujukan utamanya, nama-nama yang paling ketara disebut adalah E.H Carr lewat bukunya ‘What Is History’ (1961) serta kritikan Sir Geoffrey Elton kepada karya tersebut lewat ‘The Practice of History’ (1967) yang mana ia sendiri akhirnya menjadi suatu karya klasik di dalam bidang historiografi.

Hal ini memberikan buku ini suatu aura polemikal. Agak jarang satu-satu buku sejarah mampu membangkitkan satu-satu persengketaan dengan bahasa penulisan yang begitu tajam dan terang dalam sasaran permusuhannya.

Sejarah moden, menurut Richard Evans, adlaah bertitikmula dengan anjakan-anjakan epistemologikal dan metodologikal yang dipelopori oleh cendekiawan-cendekiawan berbangsa Jerman.

Mulanya adalah Leopold Von Ranke (1795-1886) yang mempasakkan bidang sejarah pada fondasi yang mandiri. Ranke sebenarnya lebih tepat digambarkan sebagai filologis atau ahli bahasa, dan ini terjelma di dalam penggarisan-penggarisannya terhadap agenda-agenda yang sepatutnya melatari mana-mana perusahaan pengkajian sejarah.

Menurut Ranke, tugas sejarahwan adalah untuk memahami masa silam sebagaimana difahami oleh mereka yang hidup di masa tersebut; dokumen-dokumen atau artifak-artifak yang menjadi sandaran kepada pembangunan teori-teori baru perlu ditentu-sahkan dengan jitu sebelum dimanfaatkan sebagai sumber sejarah.

Pemantapan susulan aspek teori di dalam bidang historiografi sepertin yang dilaksanakan oleh Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903) yang membezakan antara sumber primer dan sumber sekunder telah mewujudkan mantera baru di dalam bidang penulisan sejarah: kumpul bahan-bahan berkaitan, disusuli dengan aksi pengkritikan sumber disamping menentu-sahkan keaslian artifak – inilah batu-batu asas yang harus disantuni mana-mana proses penulisan sejarah.

Kehadiran ‘scientific method’ pada era moden pula tidak menggugat relevansinya malah hadir sebagai penguat di dalam aspek pembentukan hipotesis, pengungkapan soalan, dan penggunaan hasil ujikaji (statistik, arkeologi dll).

Pascamodenisme tiba di dalam bidang penulisan sejarah agak baharu sebenarnya iaitu sekitar penghujung tahun 60-an. Asalnya dari bidang kritikan sastera, pengaruhnya telah menjalar masuk ke dalam segenap bidang humanitas, berkadaran dengan perkembangan-perkembangan meruncingkan yang berlaku di dalam dunia sebenar pada setiap tataran: politik, sosial, budaya.

Pascamodenisme, dengan penekanannya terhadap bahasa dan penghasilan makna (semiotik atau semantik), telah mencabar sejarahwan-sejarahwan kontemporari yang angkuh - yang menulis tentang masa silam seolah-olah ia berlaku sama benar dengan apa yang tertitip oleh dakwat hitam mereka itu.

Manusia hanya mengenal Dunia melalui perantaraan bahasa dan bahasa pula tidak lebih daripada suatu binaan sosial, ujar pascamodenis. Justeru:

- Sebab-akibat adalah khayalan sang sejarahwan. Terlalu banyak kebetulan-kebetulan sejarah (historical accidents) yang walau kenampakan runcit telah mendatangkan bah yang besar terhadap halatuju sejarah. Metodologi sejarah, baik tradisional yang bertumpu kepada manusia-manusia Agung, ataupun saintifik yang bertumpu kepada sampel yang besar -sepertinya institusi, komuniti, bangsa- takkan sesekali mampu menggarap hal yang sedemikian.

- Terdapat tidak terkira jumlah fakta sejarah berlaku pada satu-satu detik di dalam sejarah. Yang membuatkan satu-satu fakta silam diberikan perhatian manusia kontemporari adalah kerana ia diulang-sebut pada masa kini oleh sang sejarahwan. Dan penilaian tersebut -fakta mana yang perlu disebut, fakta mana yang perlu dinyah-sebut- adalah dibuat berdasarkan penilaian sang sejarahwan, yakni tafsirannya. Lalu: ketahuilah bahawasanya tiada fakta di dalam sejarah, yang ada hanyalah hasil-hasil tafsiran ahli sejarah!

- Penulisan sejarah merujuk kepada teks-teks silam yang bahasanya takkan mampu kita fahami dengan sebenar-benar faham. Peralihan medan makna yang telah berlaku samada intra-teks mahupun ekstra-teks, dari satu zaman ke zaman yang lain, telah menyebabkan penafsiran sang sejarahwan menjadi tidak lebih daripada agak-agakan. Inikan pula apa yang bakal difahami berikutnya oleh sidang pembaca!

- Pembinaan naratif oleh sejarahwan lebih selalu adalah dibina berpandukan nilai estetik: yang umum sebelum yang khusus, yang mudah sebelum yang rumit, yang signifikan sebelum yang tidak relevan. Apa jaminannya bahawa ia adalah naratif yang jujur lagi benar? Dunia sebenar takkan sesekali mampu diperkotak-katikkan dengan khayalan kebocah-bocahan sebegini.

Respon Evans kepada pernyataan-pernyataan seperti di atas adalah tepat walau bersederhana:

- Kecenderungan generalisasi terkandung secara azalinya di dalam bahasa. Kerana itu hal tersebut adalah sesuatu yang tidak mampu dielakkan di dalam mana-mana perbahasan sejarah memandangkan satu-satu penulisan sejarah hanya terhasil rentetan kepada kewujudan suatu wacana (eg kebangkitan sains, pembentukan sistem birokrasi moden, kejatuhan rejim-rejim diktator, pertentangan kelas antara gologan pekerja dan kapitalis dll).

- Kendatipun, bahasa tiada pula merujuk kepada dirinya semata bahkan ia merujuk juga kepada sesuatu di luarnya. ‘Dog’, ‘kalbun’ dan ‘hund’ adalah nama berbeza di dalam bahasa berbeza namun ketiga-tiganya merujuk kepada objek yang sama. Tambahan, kita tahu bahawasanya bahasa berkembang selari dengan objek rujukannya (signifier) maka disana faktor ekstra-tekstual tetap ada.

- Begitu pula halnya dengan peralihan medan makna yang berlaku dari zaman ke zaman. Bukanlah suatu kemustahilan untuk sang sejarahwan menemukan jalinan antara aneka medan makna lantas mengenalpastinya. Antara caranya adalah dengan meneliti ribuan dokumen sejarah yang menggunapakai istilah-istilah tersebut dan menangkap nuansa-nuansa berbeza yang dibangkitkannya.

- Pascamodenis telah terkeliru akan perbezaan fakta dengan bukti. Fakta yang berlaku di dalam satu-satu tempoh sejarah memanglah tidak terkira, namun selagi mana ia belum ditentu-sahkan kejadiannya (occurence) lalu ditempatkan ditengah-tengah rantaian satu-satu naratif ia belum lagi menjadi bukti. Pemilihan fakta tersebut pula memanglah dipandu antaranya oleh teori dan interpretasi yang menilai relevansinya, tetapi tanpa teori/interpretasi fakta tersebut tetapi berdiri dengan sendiri.

- Pasca-modenis telah terlebih anggar kemampuan sang sejarahwan dan terkurang anggar kecerdikan khalayak pembaca. Tiada sejarahwan yang mendakwa versi sejarahnya adalah yang paling benar sepertimana tiada pembaca yang begitu goblok mempercayai setiap untaian kata penulisan sejarah yang dibacanya.

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.

Muka surat-muka surat seterusnya menyaksikan Evans bergerak melabrak racun-racun yang telah diusung ke dalam bidang penulisan sejarah lewat faham-faham pasca-modenisme. Upacara yang terkemudian itu dilakukannya dengan sungguh ‘rakus’ dan ‘kejam’ sekali, sungguh berbeza dengan nada yang digunapakai sebelumnya; pembaca tertanya-tanya samada ada bahagian itu masih ditulis oleh penulis yang sama.

Hakikat tersebut adalah simptomatik kepada permasalahan yang melatari penulisan buku ini. Terdapat perasaan bahawa Evans menyiasat topik ini secara imbas-kembali (retrospektif), bukan lewat renungan falsafi yang mendalam. 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. Jujur kata, siasatannya jauh untuk disifatkan sebagai halus di dalam bab ini.

Tentu sekali ini berbalik kepada latar belakang Evans, seorang sejarahwan Amerika yang berkhidmat di lapangan sejarah Eropah (terutamanya Jerman pada abad 19 dan 20). Objek permusuhan beliau adalah pada suguhan pasca-modenisme sebagai suatu mod kognitif di dalam bidang historiografi, bukan sebagai suatu ‘barah’ atau penyakit ketamadunan. Ini membolehkan Evans menumpukan perhatian kepada persoalan metodologikal dan teknikal sekaligus mengelak persoalan-persoalan yang melibatkan bentuk-bentuk pertentangan yang berskala kosmik.

Samada hal itu sesuatu yang mendatangkan kelegaan atau kekecewaan adalah bergantung kepada hajat asal para pembaca yang membeleknya.

Namun penulis tetap sahaja berjaya mempermasalahkan isu-isu yang menarik dan tidak kurang penting: Apakah sejarah akan berhenti ditulis? Apakah seseorang itu boleh dilatih menjadi sejarahwan? Apakah penulisan sejarah di masa hadapan boleh dilakukan oleh komputer?

Hatta persoalan ‘apakah itu sejarah?’ yang kelihatannya sudah dijawab tuntas oleh EH Carr pada 1961, tampaknya telah lapuk dek zaman. 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.

Tiada tujuan moral, atau penyuguhan gagasan ideologikal sebagai matlamat utama penulisan sejarah, hanya perubahan.

Di hujung hari, sejarahwan perlu akur dengan keterhadan yang mereka hadapi. Kerena semua sejarahwan adalah putera zamannya maka sejarah akan senantiasa ditulis dengan masa kini di dalam ingatan.

Tahap kesarjanaan penulisan sejarah bagaimanapun tetaplah perlu dipelihara sesuai dengan tuntuan bidang yang mana tujuan utamanya adalah pencarian Kebenaran. Proses pembuktian dan peranan fakta perlu diketengahkan di dalam mana-mana perbincangan historiografi. Objektiviti perlu diperjuangkan walau pada harga apa sekalipun. Usahlah pula kelirukan ia dengan neutraliti. Antara dua kutub itu, ruang untuk berdakyah perlu dikawal di dalam norma-norma perbahasan akademik.

Menduga dalamnya lautan Kebenaran dengan kail panjang sejengkal - aku kira, begitulah sumpah bagi manusia-manusia yang menghabiskan sisa hidupnya menyiasat perihal Kemanusiaan.

[Kasper Nollet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bij momenten best moeilijk, maar toch zo toegankelijk mogelijk geschreven.

Het is geen eenzijdige aanval op het postmodernisme, maar veeleer een brede overweging van de geschieddiscipline in haar geheel. Het gaat de confrontatie aan met met zowel het doorgedreven relativisme van enkele postmoderne denkers, als het verbeten historicisme van conservatievere historici, en vanalles daartussenin. Het bewandelt een genuanceerde middenweg, en onderneemt een gedegen poging om alle kanten te belichten. Het is daarom een wijs boek, een schoolvoorbeeld van verantwoorde argumentatie.

Ongeacht welk 'kamp' (al is het boek ondanks de uitdagende titel allesbehalve dichotoom) uiteindelijk aan het juiste eind trekt, Evans' kernboodschap blijft bovenal: wars van alle (terechte) kritiek, mag de historicus wel degelijk en met zelfvertrouwen stevig in zijn of haar schoenen staan. De geschieddiscipline blijft verdedigbaar. Topboekj.



(Al moet ik natuurlijk ook toegeven dat ik 's mans grootste fanboy ben, dus neem deze 5 sterren met een flinke pikkie zout ;) )

[Katia N · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting topics and fluent writing. But "The Defence of the History" has quickly turned into the defence of the professional historians from the post-modernists, not always very convincing, imho. Also the relativism is represented by the critique of Carr 'What is history?" And sometimes I felt it would be just better to read that book instead. Overall, not a bad book on historiography worth reading, but slightly dated and it did not impressed me like Twilight of the history.

[Sean Gainford · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great defence of history and a great defense of the truth

Somehow postmodernist theory has gotten into the main stream of academia. Their grand, intricate, convoluted theories, that when applied, actually don't work, are being preached by English Literature teachers and cultural and critical theorist to young eager minds in university who unfortunately don't know any better and soak up the information. These postmodernist theorists are creating an atmosphere of nihilism, where young people have stopped entering debates, stopped searching for the truth, and have actually stopped believing that there is a truth. The young now, even more so, retreat into their over stimulating computer games and televisions and forget about what is real, and about truth altogether. This seems to be fine with some people, and fine with the postmodernist theorist, however some, like Richard Evans, believe that there are serious problems with the above type of passivity. There are serious consequences to postmodernist ideology, in which it gives a license to anybody who wants to suppress, distort, or cover up the past, and thus the truth.

Some postmodernist claim that there is no real difference between history and fiction. It is true not every line in a historian's text is fact. There are only so many facts left behind by history, and for the rest, the historians have to fill in the gaps with their best judgment. However historians cannot simply impose any meaning they want to either, and just come up with fiction. They are limited by the facts and by the words a document contains, words which are not, contrary to what postmodernists claim, capable of an infinity of meaning. The historian Richard Evans states that doing historical research is like doing a jigsaw puzzle where some pieces have been destroyed. However if the pieces you do have `only fit together to produce a steam-engine [...:] it is no good trying to put them together to make a suburban garden: it simply will not work.' So it is correct that not everything in a historian's text is absolutely true and objective, however there are objective facts and truths involved. Historians then are not always providing the absolute truth, and most of them would not claim to, but altogether, are providing the probable truth, in which they have done their best to establish by following the rigorous rules of evidence.

Richard Evans book In Defense Of History brilliantly reasons out and destroys most of these absurd postmodernist claims, which really should never have got to the stage of where millions of university students are learning in great detail their theories, as if they actually were correct and have high standing. What should be happening is that great books like Richard Evans In Defense of History should be mandatory reading for university courses and studied in great detail, and postmodernist theories only brushed upon. That would create a better environment and would be altogether better for humanity.

There is a truth, a reality, and it can be, and there needs to be, an attempt to discover it. If revisionist historians have their way then present and future generations will suffer, for people will not get the truth and will not be able to learn from it. And as history has taught us, if you don't learn from the past, then you are in danger of repeating it.

[Frank Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a defense against the influence of postmodern epistemologies on historical theory & practice, I think this book has become two things: (1) a historian talking shop in some detail (2) a more general, mostly critical account of postmodernism.

As (1) it is somewhat useful, especially as an update or correction to E.H. Carr, but often unnecessarily tedious. The many intra-professional quibbles it enters into are sometimes amusing for their snide, but for a general reader like m'self not always interesting - as I simply don't know Evans's targets (well enough) to know wether the snark was justified. And unfortunately I can't completely trust Evans treats his targets in a fair & accurate way because I've noticed he has a tendency to glibly misread or misrepresent people he is criticizing (e.g. in the afterword Evans responds to a critic calling Evans's treatment of postmodernism a series of "vulgarised rebuttals of vulgarised ideas" by writing: "If by 'vulgarised' he means 'popularized', then I gladly plead guitly." But he (Stefan Collini) obviously did not mean 'popularized', but 'coarsely distorted'; Evans basically proves Collini's point by responding that way.) It, meaning the (1) part, is also quite meager compared to the (2) part.

And as for (2) my guess would be that is exactly what Collini said it was: a series of coarsely distorted rebuttals of coarsely distorted ideas, and that it does not engage in a serious argument with postmodernism. Evans has responded to criticism of this kind by saying the book was never intended as a philosophy book, he didn't intend to engage with postmodern epistemologies or its big-named philosophers such as Foucault and Derrida - the book is about the influence of postmodern epistemologies on historical practice & theory, not about those epistemologies themselves. But this, again, is glib, because even is this was Evans intention, he certainly did not stick to that. Because as Evans himself said, Derrida and Foucault "do get a mention", but they are not part of the background, they are dismissed as part of what Evans is criticizing. So the book kinda sorta is about them as well. So it's not out of bounds to criticize Evans's treatment (especially in Derrida's case, it is more accurate to call it a 'treatment' than a 'mention', as he is discussed in some detail) of them at all. And his treatment of Derrida was inaccurate.* Evans ascribes to him a hyper-relativist position that, according to Rick Roderick,* is mere "popular mythology", a (coarse) distortion of Derrida rather than Derrida himself. Remembering Roderick's words, my immediate guess when I read this was that Evans relied on a secondary source rather than on Derrida himself, and indeed he refers in the first instance to a "useful summary account" in a book by David Lehman. (Ironic, or sad, that a book defending Rankean principles would be so careless with them.) Antony Easthope has more to say about Evans's treatment of Derrida in his review of In Defence of History. It is according this review so bad it includes misquotations and "a howler". (Which Evans had to concede in a response: "Easthope says roundly : 'This is a howler', and I'm afraid he's quite right.") And his treatment of Foucault was perhaps even more disappointing, it consisted of no more than a couple of dismissive remarks. This would be inadequate even if Evans only intended to discuss the influence of postmodernism of historiography instead of postmodernism itself, because Foucault's influence on the writing of history has been (as I understand it from discussions with people who know more about it than I) quite direct and significant. So ignoring him (or rather dismissing him) should at least receive some explanation.
______
* For this boldish statement I'm relying (mostly) on Roderick and Easthope, because, like Evans, I haven't read Derrida.

** Clipped in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeSzl... (at ca. 3M20S), from this lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvAwo...

[Dfordoom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard J. Evans’ In Defence of History is an attack on the influence of postmodernism on the practice of history. What makes it interesting is that in this case the attack is coming from the Left.

What makes it even more interesting is that Evans is not even particularly hostile to postmodernism. His argument is that although postmodernism can offer the historian some useful insights and techniques there is a very real danger of throwing away the baby with the bath water. If historians abandon the time-honoured techniques of placing their reliance on primary sources and the belief that history is about something real, that the past can be (at least partially) recovered, then they will be left with nothing.

Taken to excess, postmodernist history can end up being not merely nothing but a mix subjectivity and wishful thinking, it can also open the door to some very serious dangers indeed. By rejecting the idea of objective truth postmodernism opens tremendous opportunities for extremists such as Holocaust deniers. If history can become whatever your own political leanings and subjective feelings want it to be there is no longer any valid reason for opposing the works of people like David Irving.

The most horrifying example he gives is a feminist history of witchcraft that treats all sources, including explicitly fictional sources, as being equally valid. His criticism in this case is especially telling since Evans himself is extremely pro-feminist.

When it was published several years ago it attracted a predictable firestorm of criticism in spite of the fact that Evans goes to extraordinary lengths to moderate his attacks on postmodernism. It seems that postmodernists believe that all texts should be regarded with scepticism, apart from their own!

A highly stimulating book, recommended for anyone who is unconvinced by the Brave New world of postmodernism.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Evans’ In Defense of History is, according the author’s introductory claims, a work of reflection on the state of the profession written by an active professional. In this way, it ostensibly mirrors earlier works by E.H. Carr and Geoffrey Elton, both of whom the author often cites. It becomes rapidly clear, however, that the author’s primary intention is to respond to the formidable challenge to history as a discipline presented by now well known postmodern criticism.
Evans spends much of the book’s early chapters outlining a history of history. He breaks the development of the historical discipline into periods framed roughly from the rise of Rankean professionalism until World War I, from World War I through the beginning of the Cold War, from the Cold War to the late 60s and from the late 60s to the 80s and the emergence of postmodernism. The first period is marked by a professionalizing process and the emergence of philology as a means of historical inquiry. The second period is marked by a decline in the optimistic belief in “progress”. The Cold War is said to be a time of return to “objectivity” (though Evans’ own description of the ideological nature of historical writing during this period makes this characterization curious). This period, and the preceding ones, are also marked by a dominance of the belief that history is the history of politics and great men. This belief is toppled from power in the 60s and early 70s by the rise of social history. Social history is said to have initially been revolutionary in that it shifted emphasis from high politics and “great men” to social movements, economics and “cliometric” or statistical/quantitative approaches. The success of this movement led to the assertion that it was the only true history and that all history was social history.
Evans presents postmodernism initially as a reaction to social history but soon turns to a discussion of it as an assault on the professional practice of historical scholarship writ large. He draws from a variety of postmodern sources in order to characterize postmodernism and it is here that he begins to get into trouble according to some critics. Wulf Kansteiner has argued that Evans produces a caricature of postmodernism because he draws from a limited number of sources and presents the most radical variations as mainstream. Kansteiner goes on to state that the fundamental problem with the book is Evans’ failure to convincingly prove his main point, that recourse to the historical record is sufficient to settle disputes and makes it possible to discriminate between false and faithful historical assertions. He goes on to state that when Evans defends history against the claims of postmodernism, he does so in a facile and reductive way. To Jenkins’ assertions that history is shaped by and preserves existing power structures, he replies that historians can hardly be said to have power in this day and age. To White’s claim that historical writing is shaped by “emplotment” or aesthetics, he states that historians can scarcely be said to write in a poetic manner and have not done so since the 19th century. 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. He also states that the paucity of aesthetically pleasing history writing does not disprove the assertion that the writing of history is shaped by “styles of thought” or “linguistic conventions.” In this last he has a particularly strong point, since Evans spends a great deal of time deriding the rise of “jargon” during the dominance of social history writing.
Generally speaking, Kansteiner’s response to Evans overreaches. While there are weak points to this book, some of which have already been acknowledged above, Kansteiner ignores one crucial aspect of the work. Evans is not simply assaulting postmodernism in an old fashioned attempt to keep the barbarians from the gates. 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. As such, he seems to be advocating the absorption of the best aspects of postmodernism into the mainstream of historical methodology. 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. Evans’ supposed caricaturing of the postmodern movement seems to be an attempt to continuously warn against the dangers of taking postmodernism to absurd extremes. Evans certainly does not fail to describe positive results of postmodernism’s influence on the practice of history. He asserts that it has opened up and legitimized inquiry into the extraordinary, the magical and the transgressive. It has restored the individual’s capacity to be an agent of historical change and a subject of historical inquiry. He even asserts that it has revitalized good writing as a characteristic of historical inquiry. While the last assertion may be debatable when one considers the jargon-heavy and frankly unreadable nature of many postmodern works, the fact of these positive influences and Evans’ recognition of them cannot be denied.

[Bill Kupersmith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book by the emeritus Regius Professor of Modern History agreeable and sensible, but a trifle disappointing. In my days as a member of the English Department, I found my colleagues in History both enviable and arrogant in the way they closed ranks against what they regarded as less rigorous disciplines like mine. It was delightful to find that the great Ranke learned his method from literatary studies, then called Philology. But Evans skates very lightly for good reason as he is often on thin theoretical ice. I kept wanting him to be more precise on just what constitutes a 'fact' and how 'evidence' is evaluated. Too often he seems to assume written documents are the principal sources for historical knowledge. This book was written before the publication of his three volume history of Nazi Germany and I often wished I could ask specific questions such as, 'Does it matter that we lack a written order by Adolf Hitler to exterminate the Jews?' Recent advances in computer technology and satellite mapping have enabled remarkable discoveries of previously unimagined physical 'evidence', from ancient trade routes to the Turkish railway lines that T. E. Lawrence's Arabs blew up.

[Crito · Rating 2 out of 5]

Evans' Wikipedia page as of Jan 2025 reads:

"Evans' In Defence of History defends the discipline of history against postmodernist skepticism of its value."

This sentence is what I find so wretched and tedious about relitigating decades old academic debates years out of date of their relevance. In this book Evans is not "defending" the historical profession from a nebulous postmodern threat from without, but rather addressing what professional historians were writing about their own profession of what it means to be doing historical study. Thus, this book is part of a conversation of what it means to do history, which, as Evans helpfully provides a survey of in the very first chapter, is an academic conversation which has been ongoing since the discipline professionalized in Germany in the 19th century. Evans, at this point in his career, had already been using Foucault in his work. So maybe it was largely a unfortunate editorial choice of book title. Evans is highly critical of some historians considered postmodern, and he also recognizes others as opening important paths and doing interesting work.

This intermediate stance is sometimes in tension; in his chapter on causation Evans launches a rather thin attack on postmodern criticisms of historical time as even and regulated (no joke it's literally "hmm, abolish time? Yet you call yourself 'post' modern which implies sequence! I am very smart"), only to later concede that history runs at wildly different rates and intervals and sometimes out of linear sequence in response to some other "postmodern" claims of necessary sequentiality, before concluding that postmodern historians have made valuable contributions through introduction of alternative models. My own view is that it is useless to tackle "postmodernism" as a coherent paradigm (and also that today it is fairly useless to argue about) and it gets me thinking that Evans' account would be less mixed if only that frame were removed entirely – my best guess is that in the 90s it was simply the most useful frame of reference for the conversations about historiography going on at the time.

Evans also cannot really relitigate postmodernism in any depth in a 200 page survey such as this; as a result there is a lot of "X holds the view that Y" without detailed discussion of why X holds that Y; if he did, this work would balloon wildly out of scope. But as is, it can feel fragmentary. Evans, for example, sets the "linguistic turn" in history against social modes of history. As someone new to history, I don't know what the linguistic turn is; I know what the linguistic turn in philosophy is, which is the movement from Wittgenstein on which roughly held that the problems of philosophy were problems of language. I can mentally transplant that to history and it sounds stupid on its face, and it makes no sense in Evans' contrast since the point of the philosophical linguistic turn was to understand philosophy as more socially mediated than previously thought by Russell et al. So it's clear I need more to go on here, but Evans does not have room to provide the necessary background. Evans also exacerbates things as his terminal Britishness consigns him to volleying weak criticisms if they sound precious enough: "Purkiss attacks male academic historians of witchcraft for instrumentalizing the witch in pursuit of their own academic careers, but does not pause to think how she is doing the same thing herself." Even with, or due to, or despite the lack of context given, the sentence is a glaringly obvious false equivalence; but it sounds pithy so in it goes. This is in a section charging "postmodernists" with narcissism, which, buddy, you're an academic, you've let go of that ledge ages ago. And Evans’ most staggering low is in how, relitigating the Paul De Man fiasco, he gives a really odd take about Richard Rorty’s basis for defending De Man being “death of the author,” which is tremendously odd if you know anything about Richard Rorty. It turns out Evans was citing another author’s citation of Rorty, not bothering with all the five pages of Rorty’s article. The cosmic beauty is how Rorty’s primary warning was against anti-intellectualism, and that such dismissals amount to “merely excuses for not reading them.”

However as far as critical perspectives are concerned, there is a broader point concerning the limited scope of theory which Evans makes and I find both spot on and informative. For a number of French theorists, I have found that at least in terms of philosophy they can be weak, easy, and in dire need of interdisciplinarity. So for language it is not enough to be Post-Saussure and get your entire understanding of linguistics as whatever the opposite of what he said is; you need to actually, you know, engage in the past century of research in the field of linguistics and philosophy of language. This does not occur to some literary theorists; they can tend to act like they can argue from first principles on how things in the broad sense of the term hang together in the broadest sense entirely from their readings of novels. Evans provides a grounding for this kind of critique in the way he points out how some of the stronger claims in historians of the postmodern vein come about from intellectual historians; of course if your subject is the history of ideas you largely stick to a smaller number of sources and largely reinterpret or revise earlier historical narratives. This has the downstream effect of harboring some perhaps silly views about narrative history or the use of primary sources, or the status of the "historical fact".

Now, if I seem to be crabby on all angles here it is because the subject generally makes me crabby. So while I have complained about truncated subject treatments here, a book twice as long would make me twice as crabby on principle. I generally think Evans provides a useful overview and discussion of historiography and what historians are doing when they do history, and particularly in my having followed up here from his subsequent book, Lying About Hitler. I find enough dubious in his accounts of postmodernism to be suspicious of Evans. I have also seen enough social scientists, historians included, make tremendous unsubstantiated howlers on the back of postmodern thinkers, so it’s entirely possible that Evans is fairly representing their writings. But I would be careful not to take this as the final word on any of it.

Update: I have been reading around and unfortunately I think my worst suspicions about Evans were confirmed and that he actually just sucks here, such that he had to pen a 70 page afterword in defense of "In Defense of History." I read the 1999 edition without it. My reading was to not take this book as a polemic, but I am no longer sure. Like, what does it mean that, even as a expert witness for the defense against David Irving, he was ultimately more fair to a holocaust denier than to a fellow academic historian who writes as a feminist? That he bases criticisms on secondaries, then feigns even-handedness by praising other historians he considers similar? In spite of its virtues (the historiography overview in the first two chapters is great) I think I ultimately can't recommend this. A disappointing shame since his History work is great.

[Abigail Hartman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Building on (and updating) the debate between E. H. Carr and G. R. Elton about the nature of history and historical research, Evans presents a balanced argument that acknowledges both the objectivity of truth and the subjectivity of the historian. His satirical comments about a number of other historians (especially die-hard postmodernists) are hilarious; nevertheless, his work really is evenhanded. He points out the contributions of different "schools" of historians, including the relativists, postmodernists, and deconstructionists, while at the same time noting the limitations of each and sometimes mocking those who go too far with their ideas. His point, then, is really that one must avoid extremes: either believing that the historian can fully recreate the past as it was with full objectivity, or believing that it is impossible to access the past as an objective reality at all. In the end, his book is a much-needed dose of common sense.

"So when Patrick Joyce tells us that social history is dead, and Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth declares that time is a fictional construct, and Roland Barthes announces that all the world's a text, and Frank Ankersmit swears that we can never know anything at all about the past so we might as well confine ourselves to studying other historians, and Keith Jenkins proclaims that all history is just naked ideology designed to get historians power and money in big university institutions run by the bourgeoisie, I will look humbly at the past and say, despite them all: It really happened, and we really can, if we are very scrupulous and careful and self-critical, find out how it did and reach some tenable conclusions about what it all meant." (p. 220)

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm teaching this book in a graduate seminar on research methods, so I may have to update this review based on student response. I respect Evans as a historian, and chose to teach this book after having side-lined it a few years ago because of his important work in the Lipstadt/Irving trial. In fact, I wish that Evans would update the book to reflect his experiences as an expert witness in that trial. As it is, the book relates concerns among historians about postmodern philosophy in a way that I think will be good fodder for students. The argument, while sometimes a bit "stodgy" attempts to be even-handed in describing elements of postmodernism that have improved historical writing while also criticizing what Evans dubs "extreme relativism". One thing I appreciated when I first read the book, is that he critiques the representation of the historical profession among philosophers of history who only ever seem to write about historians of the 19th and early 20th centuries, as if there had been no changes in historical methods of research or writing since that time.

[Marcus Pailing · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting. Eloquently written.
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). However, the withering afterword, when he demolishes the critics of the first edition of the book, makes it worthy of four stars!

[Mihkel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth, [...] walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their passions, but now all gone, one generation washing into the another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cockrow.

– G. M. Trevelyan

Hea, kompaktsevõitu teejuht mineviku ja selle kirjutuse mõtestamise (ja juhtivate mõtestajate) maailma ja ajalukku, mis võib osutada keerulisemaks, kui alul näikse olevat. On erinevate vaadete tutvustamisel ka ysna mõõdukas: ehkki raamat on suunatud eeskätt vastama postmodernistlike mõtlejate kriitikat (eelkõige, et objektiivset ajalootõde pole), ei ründa Evans neid mõõdutundetult (viitab, et mitmed nende toodud uuendused on olnud ka kasulikud) ega ripsuta yleliia tiiba ka hyperempiirilisust võimalikuks pidavate konservatiividega (ehkki sedastab, et ajaloolise tõe – olgu see pealegi osaline või subjektiivsusest teatvalt mõjutet – leidmine on õigete meetoditega võimalik).

Mõningaid juhtmõtteid korrutab Evans natuke tyytult palju (ning jääb mulje, et raamat võinuks seeläbi ka lyhem olla), ent pisut hämmastavalt näib, et sellest hoolimata pole mõned kriitikud suutnud neid tabada. Sellegipoolest on teos kirjutet ysna ladusalt ja värvikalt (muide, kuiva ja kehva kirjastiili – sotsiaalteadusliku ajastu igandit, mida postmodernism teataval määral minema pyhkimas on – heidab Evans paljudele ajaloolastele ette). Mõni koht, kus autor britiliku huumoriga tõsiseid väiteid vormib, ajas sydamest naerma.

[Bas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a strong defence of the historical profession and that it's possible to attain historical truths. It's clearly meant as an introduction to the subject but it's also very entertainingly written and well argued. It gave me a nostalgic feeling for my first year at University studying history and reminded my why I choose to study it.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog here in March 2001.

It may seem that investigation into the past ought to be a straightforward business, but history has been subject to a crisis of self-definition over a considerable period of time. Indeed, this has been part of the discipline from its very start, at least to some extent, as the notion of historian as interpreter rather than chronicler was defined by Herodotus and Thucydides, who differed quite considerably as to method. (Thucydides famously restricted himself to matters within living memory, but he still differed from modern practice by ascribing imaginary speeches to the people he considered to be important, something which is characteristic of ancient and medieval historians.)

Evans does not range back as far as the Greeks in his discussion of issues in history to day; the question of how a historian should separate truth from fiction and how much interpretation is legitimate may go back that far, but many other issues go back to nineteenth century Germany, when the work of Leopold von Ranke brought into being criteria which have effectively formed the yardsticks of modern historical study. These caused new issues, such as the legitimacy or otherwise of secondary sources, or whether or not history is a science - the German term applied to the subject has a wider meaning than its usual English translation. During the early part of the twentieth century, developments such as the application of Marxist principles to history and rising interest in social and economic history added new divisions between conservative and radical, and these led to the two classic works in English on the study of history, E.H. Carr's What Is History? (radical) and G.R. Elton's Practice of History (conservative).

These books appeared in the early sixties, and have remained the principal university texts on the subject ever since, despite continuing changes in the academic discipline of history, with feminist history, black history and gay history becoming seriously considered as ways to look at the past. The most serious new movement in these four decades is the advent of post-modernism, which has gone so far as to deny the possibility of writing history at all (on the grounds that the past is a construct of the present).

Evans' aim is to write a new account of the study of history, from (as the title indicates) a fairly conservative position, which looks at the various issues and controversies. He tries to be fair, but cannot help but be critical of much postmodernist history; this is quite easy, as many statements by its advocates verge on the ludicrous. He does see good things in it, including an interest in the biographies of completely obscure individuals to illuminate a period of history (as in Simon Schama's book on the French Revolution, Citizens), and a renewed emphasis on good writing as a virtue.

In recent years, controversy in history has not just been about methodology; there have been several scandals. 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. 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. This is also what he feels is the major problem with the relativistic approach underlying post-modernist theory; Evans believes that interpretations may be challenged but not the events of the past themselves.

In Defence of History is a balanced account from a conservative perspective; Evans rejects extreme viewpoints but is happy to praise positive aspects of the various approaches to the study of the past. The use of archaeology, and the relation of archaeology to the written record are issues which are strangely unmentioned, and an account of this and controversies specific to prehistory would have been valuable. They would not, however, fit in any obvious way with the neatly categorised (and well written) argument presented in the book, so that it is easy to see why they are left out.

[Kirk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe I'm a shameless fanboy, but I will read anything by Evans.

Any historiography will be a bit of a slow burn, but Evans critiques and appraises various historians, methods, philosophies, and theories with a balanced approach. Despite the changes and challenges to historical approaches, Evans does not despair of finding truth in history but rather defends the process (as noted in the title). One of his conclusions that “anyone who thinks that the truth about the past does not matter has not, perhaps, lived under a regime like that of the Soviet or Eastern bloc Communists where it is systematically distorted and suppressed” may have elicited a "here-here" from me.

Evans does save his strongest words for postmodernists, but he still acknowledges the positive impact that postmodernists have had in pushing historians in general to write better and to pursue a greater understanding and analysis of the past. This process makes the last two chapters the most engaging of the book and provides the final chapter with the following pointed conclusion:

“For my own part, I remain optimistic that objective historical knowledge is both desirable and attainable. So when Patrick Joyce tells us that social history is dead, and Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth declares that time is a fictional construct, and Roland Barthes announces that all the world's a text, and Frank Ankersmit swears that we can never know anything at all about the past so we might as well confine ourselves to studying other historians, and Keith Jenkins proclaims that all history is just naked ideology designed to get historians power and money in big university institutions run by the bourgeoisie, I will look humbly at the past and say despite them all: it really happened, and we really can, if we are very scrupulous and careful and self-critical, find out how it did, and reach some tenable conclusions about what it all meant."

More than once in the book, Evans calls for humility in approaching history. This is incredibly refreshing, and I hope historians and readers alike will take the admonition to heart.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do we bridge the gap between the dead and the living? We study history. And how do we study history? Well, that is probably the hottest question debated since the late 1980s of the 20th century.
In Defence of History is not a new book. It was written in 1997 and it is amazing to see how little has changed in the controversy and how things have gotten even worse. If you are feeling lost about what the study of history is, if you are puzzled by the recent brouhaha over cultural race theory (and let me clear that for you right away, CRT is not history), if you are revolted by historical revisionism, and why there seems to be always more of it, this is a book for you. It is still an important read for history students and is frequently assigned, while still being very accessible to the general reader. A topic that should really not be ignored by any of us.

Evans is a British historian of modern history and is mostly focused on Germany. His acclaimed three-volume history of the Third Reich is simply amazing. He is also the author of Death in Hamburg, on the peculiar cholera epidemic in that city in 1892.
Concerned by the fast spread of postmodernist theory since the 1980s, he embarked on this historiographical addition not to take sides but to explain how both traditional and postmodernist historians can help keep history a major academic field and save it from the nihilistic fangs of a growing group of hyper-relativist critics who refuse to see history as anything else but an extension of the literary critical field: a work of fiction onto which any meaning can be attached, basically denying that historical truth exists.
The book is very comprehensive and divided into 8 chapters. Evans, in the tradition of E. H. Carr, explains what is history, how it became an academic field, what its purposes and techniques are, how it has evolved and how postmodernism brought many major and welcome changes to the profession.

He takes time to explain where postmodernism comes from and cites numerous moderate and extremist postmodernist historiographers and researchers in intellectual history, sometimes magnificently debunking their claims, sometimes praising them for prescient and new insights.
Most of all, he asks us to consider the dangerous divide created by all the in-fighting: society against the individual and vice versa, hyper-relativism and deconstructionism eating away at years and years of marvellous social history (itself a major victory of the second half of 20th century over old elitist political history. Not to say political history is automatically elitist or old-fashioned today).
Evans reminds us that knowledge is power, and that it should be used very carefully. And that objectivity is to be strived for (something he discusses in detail in the last chapter), and that facts and evidence matter. What people have been through is not a story that can be read in different ways according to one’s mood, or played with to prove a theoretical point. The truth of their lives exists, and we can make sure they are not forgotten by making good evidence-based history to the best of our ability. And when the truth is found, accept it no matter how difficult it is.

The edition of 2000 has an afterword added, as Evans wished to answer the many vitriolic reviews that came out at the first publishing. I would highly recommend to get that one, as he adds to his analysis. The Notes and Further Reading sections are excellent as well.
An important read if there ever was one.

[Steve Greenleaf · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s not often that I read a book that’s written by a character in a movie, but I did so when I read Sir Richard Evans’s In Defense of History (1998). Sir Richard, Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, is no swashbuckling character. He was portrayed the movie "Denial" about the libel trial of Irving v. Lipstadt in which he served as an expert witness for Lipstadt as she proved the truth of the Holocaust against the falsehood of Irving’s denialism. Evans is an expert on modern German history, and he wrote a three-volume history of the Third Reich. But in this book, he’s not writing history; he’s writing about history.

The lineage of this undertaking is a long and venerable one. Evans notes predecessors like E.H. Carr ("What is History?") and Sir Geoffrey Elton, among others, and he mentions Collingwood only in passing and not in a flattering way. But Evans’s primary project in this book isn’t to argue with his well-known predecessors, but with his contemporizes, especially those who fly the flag of postmodernism. But in doing so, Evans isn’t out to pull them down so much as to pull them back. Evans, like other critics of postmodernism (Ken Wilber pops to mind), do not argue that they’re all wrong, but that they take some fundamental insights and run them to an extreme that collapses under the weight of logic. Postmodernism and relativism (of which postmodernism is the current incarnation) collapse in a performative contradiction when it’s insights are pushed to their logical conclusions. But Evans is not acting like an old curmudgeon here. In fact, he welcomes many of the insights provided by postmodernism and other innovative approaches to history, including its subject-matter, its way of investigating and knowing the past, and how history is written.


I’ll keep my review short, as many on Goodreads have shared the same insights. But before closing, this book deserves a place alongside the works of E.H. Carr and Sir Geoffrey Elton, and yes, even R.G. Collingwood, Evans’s ill-considered dis notwithstanding. It’s a thorough and persuasive appraisal of the historical profession and what it can hope to achieve, and it’s an excellent guide to (relatively) contemporary thinking about history.

[Michael Loveless · Rating 2 out of 5]

Richard Evans book, In Defense of History is not for everyone. The book gives an overview of some of the major movements in the study of history over the past 200 years, but its primary objective is to defend history from postmodernists. The most extreme postmodernists argue that the past can be described in so many different ways and from so many different points of view that it's impossible to determine what really happened. In fact they argue that the sources historians use are distorted by the views of those who created them, and the books historians write are so distorted by their views as to make them no different than fiction. All ideas are equally valid, and the only reason to even read a history book is because it helps the reader to understand the historian and his ideological world.

Evans sees some value in postmodernist theory, but refutes their most extreme ideas. They remind us that historians have biases, and that history can be told from many points of view. However Evans rejects the idea that there is no objective past. He believes historians should continue to try to determine what happened in the past. He exposes the contradictions in postmodernist thought. For instance they argue that the reader of a text is free to interpret the text in literally any way they want to. However postmodernists get upset when they think people have misunderstood the meaning of things they have written. He also points out that postmodernists don't even really believe their own ideas. As an example, they have trouble with people who deny the Holocaust. Evans effectively defends the work of historians who seek to find the truth, even as he acknowledges some helpful ideas in postmodernist history.

[Adrian K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

"For my own part, I remain optimistic that objective historical knowledge is both desirable and attainable. So when Patrick Joyce tells us that social history is dead, and Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth declares that time is a fictional construct, and Roland Barthes announces that all the world's a text, and Hans Kellner wants historians to stop behaving as if we were researching into things that actually happened, and Diane Purkiss says that we should just tell stories without bothering whether or not they are true, and Frank Ankersmit swears that we can never know anything at all about the past so we might as well confine ourselves to studying other historians, and Keith Jenkins proclaims that all history is just naked ideology designed to get historians powers and money in big university institutions run by the bourgeoisie, I will look humbly at the past and say despite them all: it really happened, and we really can, if we are very scrupulous and careful and self-critical, find out how it happened and reach some tenable though always less than final conclusions about what it all meant." (pp. 252-253)

[Adam Balshan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars [Historiography]
(W: 3.13, U: 3.25, T: 3.4)
Exact rating: 3.26

An explanation of historiography (how historians practice their craft), and a defense of the subject against those who have declared it meaningless (basically, Derridans).

Evans is remarkably fair to all, explaining everyone's positions at great length and quotation, and even defending Marxist readings of history, "moderate" postmodernism, and the identitarian subspecializations. He views all historical perspectives as valuable, as long as they demonstrate intellectual honesty (primarily by not fabricating or falsifying data, and allowing the historical sources to modify or even debunk cherished presuppositions).

In a year where revisionist history (e.g., Howard Zinn, The 1619 Project) is making its way into every school and university in my country, and history is being literally torn down in the streets and museums, Evans's humble voice of purity and genuine disciplinary expertise is a welcome bulwark of sanity.

[Jasper · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a bit of a rushed review. As a self educating historical researcher I appreciated this book as an overview of historiography and it settled a lot of my anxieties about the impossibility of objectivity especially as someone with strong political convictions. I feel like I have a way forward. There are a couple of annoying bits, actually all around the same point where he argues against the strawman of "only women/black people/gay people can write history about women/black people/gay people", and actually a lot the people critical of his treatment of post-modernism seemed to take issue with his "vulgarising" of postmodern arguments, to which he then...

K I need to do my laundry now. Good book on historiography, entertainingly written. Don't use to educate yourself about postmodernism, take with pinch of salt, don't bother with the afterword unless you're entertained by inter-academic beef.

[Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

WOW! So from a history point of view, this is my first historian book, and this was a compelling read! My history teacher bought this for me to help understand how to approach history as a subject. In this book the author Richard J. Evans, looks at the very different forms of approaching history, and to discuss post-modernism! 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! The book covers various topics, i remember one of my favorites was when the book asks whether history should be treated as a science? But overall this a great read, and if your history student, it will help you analyse source documents and history in general in a more academic way!

[Justin Barger · Rating 4 out of 5]

A searing polemic on postmodern interpretations of history, whether they are Marxist, feminist, or plain old revisionist, despite one such academic proclaiming "all history is revisionist". One of the specific attacks he makes is not only over the intrusion of social sciences into historical studies, whether it be sociology, anthropology, or psychology. But rather, it's literary theory, a useful hand maiden of postmodern historiography, where history is reduced to the mere interpretation of texts, in which every document must be interpreted from many different angles, and that the search for objectivity is a misnomer at best. The appearance of many different types of historical research in the 20th century, often reacting to one another to offer at their onset, the most "objective" way to do history, often (in the eyes of people like Michel Foucault, ironically) ended up being seen as masks for power or political ideology, with many theorists not offering objective history at all but rather "history from an individual perspective". Not only has this (similar to how Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann asserted) become "solidified" in that postmodernism has become the victim of the very "institutionalization" it claimed to work against, making all history "elitist history", nevermind the fact that they claimed to speak for the underprivileged or working classes. It has become simply a profession where historians talk only to other historians, nevermind those from other social sciences let alone the general public. However, despite all of this many depend on the state for their tenure so it would follow they support state funding as it keeps their paychecks coming in. So its one of the main reasons many historians oppose conservative viewpoints. Political history has been written out of history simply because historians depend on our current status quo who promote a view of a supposed democratic progress and humanitarian empathy because war and hard-nosed diplomacy is the example of a zero sum society who engage in pointless displays of masculine aggression. However if history as a practice is to be continued, we must realize we do not live in a bubble from each other. Plenty of European white males have "bent the knee" to women, blacks, gays, etc. But expecting the former in the practice of history to engage in mutual reciprocity, the shoe still seems on the other foot, despite many attempts to do so is not enough. One such example is Diane Purkiss' argument against Keith Thomas' depictions of 17th century witches presupposes the latter makes the claim of "antisocial women" was simply because he was a man, which seems more like a political witch hunt in of itself, but to claim Thomas was persecuted in this regard would either result in laughter or deafening silence, which seems to be more of a psychological and sociological problem than a historical one. The issue is that one, within reason should be open to other views provided their each claim cannot be undermined by its disagreement and that the claim that realism is just as true as idealism or subjectivism - since postmodern thought denies realism - then subjectivism cannot also be true, since if either both be true or nothing is true, according to postmodern theory. It itself, is Zero sum. History is constantly talking - and we must listen.

[Rob M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyable romp through different contemporary approaches to history writing, pitching itself as follow-up/reappraisal of E.H. Carr's What Is History? and Geoffrey Elton's The Practice of History, both standard introductions to the subject since the 1960s.

Evans' picks up with an analysis of Carr's progressive view of history writing and Elton's conservative view and introduces his reader to how the discipline has progressed since then. Although In Defence of History covers all sorts of approaches, dealing reasonably fairly with their various strengths and weaknesses, it reserves its biggest punch for the outer reaches of post-modernism, which Evans believes threatens to distort the discipline beyond anything that can reasonably be called 'history' at all.

All in all, well worth reading for students of history, or for the keenly interested general reader looking to get into the theoretical dynamics of how a history book is written.

[Jonathan Hart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Evans’ ‘in defence of history’ is a modern classic within historiography and a must read for all those who study history. I wish I had read this before I began my undergraduate in history, for the powerful and persuasive arguments made in this book would have carried me through the often defeatist perspectives of some of my professors. Evans manages to properly refute the worst parts of postmodernism whilst giving it enough room to properly and constructively criticise the oft too conservative empiricism found in early 20th century history. By doing so he creates a strong and broad path forward for the field of history as it began its journey into the 21st century. Let history continue.