A Global History of History

Description

A global history of historical writing, thought and the development of the historical discipline from the ancient world to the present. This is a definitive guide to human efforts to recover, understand and represent the past, bringing together different historical traditions and their social, economic, political and cultural contexts. Daniel Woolf offers clear definitions of different genres and forms of history and addresses key themes such as the interactions between West and East, the conflict of oral, pictographic, and written accounts of the past and the place of history in society and in politics. Numerous textual extracts and illustrations in every chapter capture the historical cultures of past civilizations and demonstrate the different forms that historical consciousness has taken around the world. The book offers unique insights into the interconnections between different historical cultures over 3000 years and relates the rise of history to key themes in world history.

Daniel Woolf is Professor of History at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. His previous publications include Reading History in Early Modern England (Cambridge University Press, 2000) and the two-volume Global Encyclopedia of Historical Writing (1998). He is also general editor of the Oxford History of Historical Writing (2010 onwards).

'This is the first comprehensive one-volume history of historical writing from earliest times to the present. Its strength lies in its broad intercultural approach. It is very readable and I recommend it highly as a text in courses and seminars in historiography and comparative intellectual history.' Georg G. Iggers, State University of New York, Buffalo 'Woolf's book offers us a genuinely global study of the history of history, a lucid and balanced synthesis and one that makes a serious attempt to avoid the twin dangers of Eurocentrism and present-mindedness, emphasizing as it does the multiple roads to the past.' Peter Burke, University of Cambridge 'This is a very knowledgeable and comprehensive history of world historiography. Woolf, a recognized expert in this area, has combined chronology and geography, including Africa and the Near and Far East as well as Europe and the US; and his solution works very well. The field of global history is relatively new and this is a bold and effective effort to encompass it in a single volume.' Donald Kelley, Rutgers, State University of New Jersey 'This is a formidable work, at once open to the multiplicity of different traditions in historiography across the world and able to shape them into an impressive narrative without artificially doing so by emphasizing linkages and interactions. The illustrations are pertinent and the use of inset passages is helpful. This book will offer much to scholars and students alike.' History 'A considerable, even astounding, achievement. It might yet become a defining moment in the field.' English Historical Review '... the book's broadness in coverage (which is shown not only in the text itself but also, very ingeniously and usefully, in the 'text extracts' and 'subject boxes'), is not only unprecedented but, in my opinion, also difficult for anyone to surpass in the foreseeable future ... this is a valuable book, marking a worthwhile attempt to re-imagine and re-present the study of historiography. It deserves to be read not only by history students taking courses on historiography and historical methods but also by all practising historians interested in knowing more about their profession.' Q. Edward Wang, Journal of Global History '... it impresses with its well-thought-out structure, accessible language, concise presentation of complex issues, and, on top of that, some original interpretations, which make it interesting to professional historians, too.' The Historical Journal '... a very intelligent and comprehensive account that represents the current status of our knowledge about history writing across the last millennia and across all continents.' International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity