Essential Historiography Reader, The

by Caroline Hoefferle

The Essential Historiography Reader, not only details the history of historical practice and explains historical theories and philosophies in language that is accessible to college undergraduates, it also provides excerpts to illustrate these historical approaches and help students to identify them in their own writing and in the writings of contemporary historians . The book is organized into two main parts. The first part traces the origins of contemporary American historical traditions to their roots in ancient Greece and explains how the profession of history emerged and developed in Europe and America through the nineteenth century. The second part focuses more specifically on historiographical developments the United States since the nineteenth century.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Textbooks

320 pages, Paperback

First published July 30, 2010

Reviews

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very good introductory book. I kind of wish I'd read it before jumping into Ernst Breisach's much headier work on the topic. This is very sparse work, but the pairing of the commentary and the excerpts featured, as well as the bibliography, serves as an ideal road map for further historiography reading.

[Matthew William · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book. The wealth of historiographical information is amazing. I also enjoyed the variety of readings presented in the book and the effort at presenting a wide view of varying historiographical techniques is what would make this a quality textbook for an undergraduate historiography course. However....I felt like the large amount of typos, sentence structure errors, and other mistakes that should have been caught in the editing process detracts from the book somewhat. Several of the readings had mistakes in them that are not present in the original text. This is a good historiography introductory textbook, but hopefully the mistakes presented are corrected in future editions.

[Piper · Rating 4 out of 5]

a wonderful tool in teaching the foundations of historiography, wonderful primary sources, love the conscious inclusion and acknowledgement towards marginalized communities. Highly recommend for an overview of Historiography, specifically leading to modern American academic history.

[Tsai Wei-chieh · Rating 4 out of 5]

課程教材。主要偏美國史學史，而且對上個世紀中葉的美國史學介紹頗詳細，是一大特點。選文也有獨特風格，放入了不少女性史家的作品。可惜沒有物質文化研究、情感史與疾病醫療史的討論。不過對本科生來說，作為教材還是堪用的。

[Matias · Rating 4 out of 5]

An incredible beginner's reading into historiography. Amazing as a pre college or freshman theory read. Deep, rich, but not a drag!