A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century

Description

For the first time in any language, the history of history, from the Greeks to the twentieth century This unprecedented book, by one of Britain's leading intellectual historians, describes the intellectual impact that the study and consideration of the past has had in the western world over the past 2500 years, treating the practise of history not as an isolated pursuit but as an aspect of human society and an essential part of the cultural history of Europe and America. It magnificently brings to life the work of historians from the Greeks to the present, explaining their distinctive qualities and allowing the modern reader to appreciate and enjoy them. But is also examines subjects as diverse as the new perspectives brought about by the rise of Rome, the interests of medieval chroniclers, the effects of Romanticism and the emergence towards the end of the nineteenth century of an historical profession. It sets out to be not the history of an academic discipline, but a history of choice- the choice of pasts, and the ways they have been demarcated, investigated, presented and even sometimes learned from as they have changed according to political, religious, cultural and (often most importantly) patriotic circumstances.

John Burrow was professor of Intellectual History at the University of Sussex from 1981 to 1995 and Professor of European Thought at Oxford from 1995 to 2000. His earlier books include Evolution and Society- a study in Victorian Social Theory (1966), A Liberal Descent- four Victorian Historians (1981), which won the Wolfson Prize for History, Gibbon (1984) and The Crisis of Reason- European Thought 1848-1914 (2000). He is a Fellow of the British Academy and an Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford.

'if historians have a Valhalla, a hall of heroes, he has earned his place with this book' - Dominic Sandbrook, Evening Standard 'a triumphant success. The result is a highly enjoyable book, based on a vast amount of reading, written with attractive simplicity, brimming with acute observations, and often very witty. Anyone who wants to know what historical writing has contributed to our culture should start here' - Keith Thomas, Guardian 'This book is magnificent: a daunting combination of vast range, profound learning and high literary art. In 500 superbly crafted pages (miraculously succinct for the task in hand), Burrow's chapters treat of almost every imporant historian of the last two-and-a-half thousand years' - John Adamson, Sunday Telegraph