"A general discussion of the recent changes of historiography in different parts of the world has long been lacking. This book could serve to fill this lacuna, not least for the purposes of university courses. Two concluding chapters and an introduction bring forward general traits and specific characteristics."--BOOK JACKET.

So far histories of historiography have concentrated almost exclusively on the West. This is the first book to offer a history of modern historiography from a global perspective. Tracing the transformation of historical writings over the past two and half centuries, the book portrays the transformation of historical writings under the effect of professionalization, which served as a model not only for Western but also for much of non-Western historical studies. At the same time it critically examines the reactions in post-modern and post-colonial thought to established conceptions of scientific historiography. A main theme of the book is how historians in the non-Western world not only adopted or adapted Western ideas, but also explored different approaches rooted in their own cultures.

The first book on historiography to adopt a global and comparative perspective on the topic, A Global History of Modern Historiography looks not just at developments in the West but also at the other great historiographical traditions in Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere around the world over the course of the past two and a half centuries. This second edition contains fully updated sections on Latin American and African historiography, discussion of the development of global history, environmental history, and feminist and gender history in recent years, and new coverage of Russian historical practices. Beginning in the mid-eighteenth century, the authors analyse historical currents in a changing political, social and cultural context, examining both the adaptation and modification of the Western influence on historiography and how societies outside Europe and America found their own ways in the face of modernization and globalization. Supported by online resources including a selection of excerpts from key historiographical texts, this book offers an up-to-date account of the status of historical writing in the global era and is essential reading for all students of modern historiography.

“No one looking for a well-informed introduction to . . the key views of history adopted by professional historians . . could find a better one than this.” ―Richard J. Evans, author of In Defence of History A broad perspective on historical thought and writing, with a new epilogue. In this book, now published in ten languages, a preeminent intellectual historian examines the profound changes in ideas about the nature of history and historiography. Georg G. Iggers traces the basic assumptions upon which historical research and writing have been based, and describes how the newly emerging social sciences transformed historiography following World War II. The discipline’s greatest challenge may have come in the last two decades, when postmodern ideas forced a reevaluation of the relationship of historians to their subject and questioned the very possibility of objective history. Iggers sees the contemporary discipline as a hybrid, moving away from a classical, macrohistorical approach toward microhistory, cultural history, and the history of everyday life. The new epilogue, by the author, examines the movement away from postmodernism towards new social science approaches that give greater attention to cultural factors and to the problems of globalization. “The book has all the virtues one associates with Georg Iggers—lucidity, detachment, balance, and the ability to reveal the relation between trends in historical writing and their political and cultural contexts.” —Peter Burke, Cambridge University

This book examines the evolution of historical professionalism, with the development of an international community that shares a set of values regarding both methodological minimum demands and what constitutes new results. Historical professionalism is not a fixed set of skills, but a concept with varying import and meaning at different times depending on changing norms. Torstendahl covers the propagation of these different ideals and of new educational forms from the late 18th century to the present, from Ranke’s state-centrism to a historiography borne by social theories.

The fifth volume of The Oxford History of Historical Writing offers essays by leading scholars on the writing of history globally since 1945. Divided into two parts, part one selects and surveys theoretical and interdisciplinary approaches to history, and part two examines select national and regional historiographies throughout the world. It aims at once to provide an authoritative survey of the field and to provoke cross-cultural comparisons. This is chronologically the last of five volumes in a series that explores representations of the past across the globe from the beginning of writing to the present day.

The book shows how the study of the evolving discourse employed during a political process spanning more than a decade can provide insights for critical discourse analysis, on the one hand, and understanding of a real world political process on the other, thereby demonstrating the potential role for critical discourse analysis in historiography.

A chronological scholarly survey of the history of historical writing in five volumes. Each volume covers a particular period of time, from the beginning of writing to the present day, and from all over the world.

Examining turning points in historical thought in a variety of cultures, the essay here deal with reorientations in historical thinking in the pre-modern period since Antiquity, mainly in ancient Greece and China and in medieval Christian Europe.

This book traces the development of historiography from the days of Herodotus to those of postmodernism. It covers the ancient, medieval and the modern aspects of the subject and offers easy comprehension, clear and precise guidance and immediate utility. The author provides a balanced view of competing ideas and leads the reader into the vast arena of the subject. Two thousand five hundred years of historiography, including Indian historiography and the poststructuralist critique of history, constitutes this clear, analytical work.