Biography and History

by Barbara Caine

Biography is the oldest way of writing about historical events, and one of the most popular. Looking at the complex relationship between the discipline of history and the writing of lives, Biography and History :
• is the first work to explore the significant place of biography within historical writing at the present time
• combines a discussion of the history of biography with an extended analysis of contemporary approaches to biography
• links developments within history to the wider interest in auto/biography and life-writing, and to literary methods
• suggests that there are some distinctive features in the ways in which historians handle biography.

Original and insightful, this is an essential introduction to a growing, and increasingly important, field of study and research.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction

196 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2010

About the author

Barbara Caine is the Head of the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry. Prior to taking it up, she was a Professor of History and ARC Professorial Fellow at Monash University.

Reviews

[Christian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Serviceable if this happens to be the first thing you ever read on historical biography, but otherwise, I think, it can be safely skipped. You might get something on the history of biography out of it, but not so much on its relationship to historical practice in the 2000s: in other words, on theory.
At least not much you can't find elsewhere articulated better.

Most negatively is the author's implicit assumption - judging from the examples - that all biographies are written on people from the modern era, where ego-documents are abundant, and the questions raised by what she calls "new biography" (or, probably, critical feminist biography) can easily be explored.

[Yasin Çetin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Biyografi ve tarih arasındaki ilişkiyi irdeleyen eserde, biyografinin dönemler boyunca nasıl ele alındığı ve ne kadar ilgi gösterildiği ele alınmaktadır. Toplumsal hareketlerin biyografi yazınını nasıl etkilediği ve aynı zamanda toplumsal hareketleri biyografinin nasıl etkilediği gibi konulara yer veriliyor. Feminizm ile beraber kadın biyografileri ve ardından kadın biyografi yazarlarının artması irdelenmektedir. Benzer bir etki eşitlik mücadeleleri içinde ortaya konulmaktadır.

[Dimitrii Ivanov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concise guide to the history of relations between genres of historio- and biography, with summaries of the more significant recent discussions.

[Sevim Tezel Aydın · Rating 3 out of 5]

Biyografiyi çok severim, tarihi de… Haliyle, her ikisini aynı başlıkta birleştiren bir kitap ilgimi çekti. Kitap biyografi ile tarihyazımı arasındaki ilişkiyi, biyografi yazımını ve geçirdiği değişimleri inceliyor. Yer yer kuru bir üslupla yazılmış olsa da bireyin ve bireysel tarihin genel tarih içindeki yerini, duruşunu ve her ikisinin birbirleriyle etkileşimlerini derli toplu bir kaynaktan okumak beni mutlu etti.

[Hayley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this while I was writing my senior thesis. I found this book very useful and helpful. While dry at times, it was also fairly readable. In the world of historiography, the history of biography has been little studied, so this book is a good contribution to this small field.

[Patrik · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is very instructive and helpful. Probably the only negative aspect of it is the style in which it's written -- it's somewhat fragmented and not always clearly structured.