The Postmodern History Reader

Routledge Readers in History

by Keith Jenkins (Editor)

The Postmodern History Reader is the most comprehensive collection of influential texts on historiography and postmodernism yet compiled. Keith Jenkins expertly selects from the books and journal articles across the whole historiographical range that have been key to the transforming debates. This unique reader is a clear introduction to the impact of postmodernism on historical debate, allowing easy access to one of the more stimulating and exciting areas of current history. It * extracts from influential historians, such as Barthes, Joyce, White, Foucault and Baudrillard
* individual introductions to each carefully defined debate
* many thoroughly up-to-date as well as 'classic' pieces
* texts from a range of subdisciplines in history and theory
* arguments both for and against postmodernism
* advice on further reading
* access to key writings which are not normally readily available. Presented in a format that is both easy to use and challenging, The Postmodern History Reader will serve as an invaluable course text and reference tool for students and postgraduates.

Genres: History, Academic, Philosophy, Nonfiction

460 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Keith Jenkins is a British historiographer. Like Hayden White and other "postmodern" historiographers, Jenkins believes that any historian's output should be seen as a story. A work of history is as much about the historian's own world view and ideological positions as it is about past events. This means that different historians will inevitably ascribe different meaning to the same historical events.

Jenkins is professor in history at the University of Chichester.

Reviews

[Miss · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting compliation of essays discussing the pros and cons of postmodernism and historiography. What shines through is the discipline's fear of losing its scientific status. That's quite a shame because art and science are on the same side, history isn't maths and the better you write, the easier you can educate the public. I guess we will have to wait for a certain generation to retire before postmodernist ideas can spread their wings within the historical discipline.

[Peter Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be clear, this is not a book really intended to be read from cover to cover. As the editor Keith Jenkins makes clear in his introduction it is a selection of key texts from books and journals intended to support a (presumably undergraduate) course on understanding the influence of postmodernism on the writing of history.

For all that, I found it a genuinely interesting read. It presents a range of views that gives a real sense of the issues the form the basis of the debate, including a range of both poststructuralist and more traditional writers. I came from a starting point of having a brief understanding of postmodernism (summarised on my blog here https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2... ) reading through the extracts presented here deepened my understanding of postmodernism as an approach to the writing of history.

Needless to say I am no more in sympathy with the postmodernists than I was at the start, but this book is an useful summary way to a better understanding of it as a proposition.

[Jonathan]

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