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Since its first publication in 1992, New Perspectives on Historical Writing has become a key reference work used by students and researchers interested in the most important developments in the methodology and practice of history. For this new edition, the book has been thoroughly revised and updated and includes an entirely new chapter on environmental history.Peter Burke is joined here by a distinguished group of internationally renowned historians, including Robert Darnton, Ivan Gaskell, Richard Grove, Giovanni Levi, Roy Porter, Gwyn Prins, Joan Scott, Jim Sharpe, Richard Tuck, and Henk Wesseling. The contributions examine a wide range of interdisciplinary areas of historical research, including women's history, history 'from below,' the history of reading, oral history, the history of the body, microhistory, the history of events, the history of images, and political history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

The Classic, Updated
The essays in this collection are classic expositions of some of the more interesting debates in historical writing from the early 1990s in a largely English (with leanings toward the French Annalistes and German Alltagsgeschichte) tradition of historical writing.

Burke and the contributors can hardly be blamed for being only as good as their areas of expertise and interest, but it is worth bearing in mind that the book was not considered comprehensive by some American critics and was critiqued for neglecting areas such as cliometrics and psychohistory.

Nonetheless, some of the pieces are absolute must-reads for theoretical explorations of different approaches. Levi's essay on micro-history, for instance, is masterful and provocative, even if he disclaims any responsibility for speaking on behalf of all of the Italian practitioners of microhistory. I must say, though, I found Joan W Scott's piece on gender and history to be neither as interesting or provocative as the essays she published in her own volumes, or her classic essay "The Evidence of Experience."

Sadly, probably the best essay in the volume, Roy Porter's essay on the history of the body, has been replaced in this new edition, because, as Porter notes, hundreds of historians over the 1990s answered the call to historicize the body. This is a shame because, if the new essay which replaces it is a good overview of work that has been done, the original essay should remain a point of reference for anyone interested not in the history of discourses about the body, but the histories of bodies themselves.

Well worth buying and reading carefully, though for the above reason I would seriously consider looking rather for the older edition.

New History From a Distinguished Panel of Researchers.
The editor of this comprehensive textbook, Peter Burke (no relation) is a Reader (I think that is a teacher in Britian) of cultural history at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Emmanuel College, where Gwyn Prins is the director of studies in history and is a contributor to this most interesting history perspective study.He studied grattifi of Renaissane Italy, which could be political street culture if on a famous statue or ritual insults when scribbled on the door of an enemy.He wrote POPULAR CULTURE IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE in 1978.

Feminists could not be good historians.Women in history has to show that their presence was required to correct the story.The other female contributor, Joan Scott, is professor his social science at Princeton in America and so is Robert Darnton, a prof of history.The others come from Venice, York, Cambridge and London.A curator of an art museum at Harvard, Ivan Gaskell, is also one of the contributors.Men in history protect the power and resources their dominance gave them.Their resistance to equality between the sexes is a characterization of history.

These are just some of the 'new' history writers from a number of fields. We have a local one here who specializes in digging out the old stories from a variable feast of outlaws, visiting dignataries, and sometimes a native who made it big in this two-buck town.This book is unlike anything else now available on this subject.But it is good to remember that it is merely these few distinguished historians' view.I have read other more recent books on this new "entertaining" history writing, where a little imagination of the author is added to the historical facts.

"New" history can never replace traditional history as it is not the story at all, it's about the story.Peter Burke from England gathered these varied, but slanted, versions of what is now known as 'new' history when it is in fact 'historical fiction.'Sometimes fiction is more real than the truth, so why not embellish it a little to make it more readable.It is a change from all of the dull commentary on what really happened and why.It's more like what might have happened and could be better.

This book needs a Glossary as so many esoteric words were used, such as:epistemologically, connoisseurship, iconography, deconstructionists, anachronism, ostensibly, inventiveness, minutiae, fluctuating, disqualificatin, autoradiography, hypothesis, demystificatory, disparities, historicising, canonical, idealogical, taxonomically, elucide, smokescreen, status quo, manipulation, and micropolitics -- and many such words.

Good bedside reading
For those insomniacs out there this book will certainly do the trick. Or it makes a good paper weight or door stop.

Had it for a class as an unddergrad and it was good.
Although at times too abstract the book is a good discussion of historical writing.It is not an easy read but it is very rewarding. I was a better student of history after I read it. ... Read more

Product Description
/I> This is a guide to doing historical research which offers invaluable advice and practical support to writers and provides a mass of useful tips and advice on how to research and present historical books or dissertations. */This practical guide to covers the various stages of a history research project, from the selection of a topic and the organization and interpretation of source material, through to the completion of the written-up record. Whether it is for a dissertation, thesis, article or full-length book, Historical Research deals with the purpose of research, and the implications, limitations and benefits of different research methods, as well as the effective presentation of the finished result. For anyone writing history books or articles or for students preparing dissertations ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

McDowell.Historical research
The guide by W.H.McDowell to Historical Research is on my reading list at Charles Sturt University. Australia. It is a most valuable guide and I am very glad you could provide it.

Some Chapters Invaluable for Novice Scholars
The one negative review of "Historical Research: A Guide" was obviously written by a graduate student who is desparately seeking a "magic bullet" for the dissertation. Sorry buddy, one does not exist. I co-teach a social science capstone in which students conduct orginal research for their senior theses.We currently have students using five different methodologies. Providing undergraduate students with research guides that are both rigorous and appropriately "user friendly" is a difficult task.
I find available materials on historical method inadequate to the task.Rudimentary guides like Marius, Storey, Benjamin, and Brundage have merits but lack the necessary sophistication.Classic works like Cantor and Schneider, Shafer, Barzun,and Gottschalk have extremely useful chapters but are highly uneven and seem quite dated. Although McDowell is not a "one-stop shopping" guide for an understanding of historical method, I found some of the chapters invaluable for undergraduate and graduate researchers. His chapters on "Historical Sources," "Evaluating Source Material," and "Research Notes" are just what the doctor ordered for the novice scholar.
Compared to the wealth of methodological guides for ethnography, content analysis, in-depth interviewing and survey research, the current generation of historians has produced rather thin gruel.

Big disappointment
I purchased this book to help create my historical research for my dissertation.Even though the book was published in 2002, the author writes as if no one has ever used a database, a word processor, or conducted any type of research.It was a complete waste of $35.80.:o( ... Read more

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Masses of edited documents and analytical material have been generated by Holocaust scholars, and some bibliographical and encyclopedic guides to the field are available. However, a student or researcher may be confounded by the abundance of publications and may lack the necessary background and endurance to sift the wheat from the chaff. The present volume has a two-fold purpose: to offer substantial analysis in intrinsic topics of study and to assess the relevant literature in each case. The opening section on conceptual approaches to the Holocaust comprises such subjects as the rise of national socialism, biographies of Hitler, concentration camps, and the "righteous gentiles." Area studies deal with aspects of the Holocaust in European countries and regions as well as the Arab-German collaboration and American responses. A third section takes up Holocaust subjects in education, belles lettres, and the arts. ... Read more

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The descriptions of lacrosse which have been transmitted to us, would often prove unintelligible to one who had never seen the game played. The writers of the accounts which have come down to us from the early part of the seventeenth century were men whose lives were spent among the scenes which they described and they had but little time, and few opportunities for careful writing. The individual records though somewhat confused enable us easily to identify the game, and a comparison of the different accounts shows how thoroughly the main features of the game have been preserved.

Lacrosse is played to-day as follows: The number of players on the opposing sides should be equal. Regular stations are assigned in the rules for playing the game, for twelve on each side. Goals, each consisting of two upright posts or staffs, generally about six feet apart and of equal height, are planted at each end of the field. The length of the field and its bounds are determined by the character of the ground and the skill of the players. The effort of each side is to prevent the ball from passing through the goal assigned to its protection, and equally to try to drive it through the opposite goal. Under no circumstances can the ball be touched during the game, while within the bounds, by the hands of the players. Each player has a racket, the length of which, though optional, is ordinarily from four to five feet. One end of this racket or bat is curved like a shepherd's crook, and from the curved end a thong is carried across to a point on the handle about midway its length. In the space thus enclosed between the thong and the handle, which at its broadest part should not exceed a foot in width, a flat network is interposed. This forms the bat. It is with this that the player picks up and throws the ball used in the game, which should be about eight or nine inches in circumference. The ball is placed in the centre of the field by the umpire, and when the game is called, the opposing players strive to get possession of it with their rackets. The play consists in running with it and throwing it, with the design of driving it between the adversary's goal posts; and in defensive action, the purpose of which is to prevent the opponents from accomplishing similar designs on their part. As the wind or the sunlight may favor one side or the other on any field, provision is generally made for a change of goals during the match. The stations of the players and the minor rules of the game are unimportant in this connection.

The oldest attempt at a detailed description of the game is given by Nicolas Perrot who from 1662 to 1699 spent the greater part of his time as _coureur de bois_, trader, or government agent, among the Indians of the far West. It is of him that Abbe Ferland says, "Courageous man, honest writer and good observer, Perrot lived for a long time among the Indians of the West who were very much attached to him." His accounts of the manners and customs of the North American Indians have been liberally used by subsequent writers and as the part treating of games is not only very full but also covers a very early period of history, it is doubly interesting for purposes of comparison with games of a later day. He [Footnote: Memoire sur les Moeurs, Coustumes et Relligion des Sauvages de l'Amerique Septentrionale, par Nicolas Perrot, Leipzig et Paris, 1864, p. 43, _et seq._] says, "The savages have many kinds of games in which they delight. Their natural fondness for them is so great that they will neglect food and drink, not only to join in a game but even to look at one. There is among them a certain game of cross which is very similar to our tennis. Their custom in playing it is to match tribe against tribe, and if the numbers are not equal they render them so by withdrawing some of the men from the stronger side.

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This digital document is an article from The Journal of the American Oriental Society, published by Thomson Gale on July 1, 2005. The length of the article is 6513 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The limits of credulity (presidential address).(interpretation of historical writings)
Author: Gary Beckman
Publication: The Journal of the American Oriental Society (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 125Issue: 3Page: 343(10)

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"There are," says Father Brebeuf in his account of what was worthy of note among the Hurons in 1636, [Footnote: Relations des Jesuites, Quebec, 1858, p. 113.] "three kinds of games particularly in vogue with this people; cross, platter, and straw. The first two are, they say, supreme for the health. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from American Review of Canadian Studies, published by Association for Canadian Studies in the United States on December 22, 2001. The length of the article is 8135 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Regionalism, W. L. Morton, and the writing of western Canadian history, 1870-1885.(Critical Essay)
Author: R. Douglas Francis
Publication: American Review of Canadian Studies (Refereed)
Date: December 22, 2001
Publisher: Association for Canadian Studies in the United States
Volume: 31Issue: 4Page: 569(21)

Article Type: Critical Essay

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This digital document is an article from The Oral History Review, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2005. The length of the article is 3604 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: When subjects talk back: writing Anne Braden's life-in-progress.(Biography)
Author: Catherine Fosl
Publication: The Oral History Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 32Issue: 2Page: 59(11)

Article Type: Biography

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