A history of histories: epics, chronicles, romances and inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the twentieth century [1st U.S. ed] 9780307268525, 0307268527, 9781299023550, 129902355X

An analysis of the study of the past and its implications in the Western world, from ancient times to the present day, l

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English Pages xviii, 517 pages Year 2008

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A history of histories: epics, chronicles, romances and inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the twentieth century [1st U.S. ed]
 9780307268525, 0307268527, 9781299023550, 129902355X

Table of contents :
Introduction: A history of histories? --
Prologue: Keeping records and making accounts: Egypt and Babylon --
pt. 1. Greece. Herodotus: the great invasion and the historian's task --
Thucydides: the Polis--the use and abuse of power --
The Greeks in Asia. Xenophon: The Persian expedition --
The Alexander historians: Arrian and Curtius Rufus --
pt. 2. Rome. Polybius: universal history, pragmatic history and the rise of Rome --
Sallust: a city for sale --
Livy: From the foundation of the city --
Civil War and the road to autocracy: Plutarch, Appian and Cassius Dio --
Tacitus: "Men fit to be slaves" --
A provincial perspective: Josephus on the Jewish Revolt --
Ammianus Marcellinus: the last pagan historian --
General characteristics of ancient historiography --
pt. 3. Christendom. The Bible and history: the people of God --
Eusebius: the making of Orthodoxy and the Church triumphant --
Gregory of Tours: kings, bishops and others --
Bede: the English Church and the English people --
pt. 4. The revival of secular history. Annals, chronicles and history. Annals and chronicles --
Pseudo-history: Geoffrey of Monmouth --
Secular history and chronicle: William of Malmesbury's Modern history and the scurrilities of Matthew Paris --
Two abbey chronicles: St. Albans and Bury St. Edmunds --
Crusader history and chivalric history: Villehardouin and Froissart. Villehardouin's The conquest of Constantinople --
Froissart: "matters of great renown" --
From civic chronicle to human history: Villani, Machiavelli and Guicciardini --
pt. 5. Studying the past. Antiquarianism, legal history and the discovery of feudalism --
Clarendon's History of the rebellion: the Wilfulness of particular men --
Philosophic history. Hume: enthusiasm and regicide --
Robertson: "The state of society" and the idea of Europe --
Gibbon: Rome, barbarism and civilization --
Revolutions: England and France. Macaulay: the glorious revolution --
Carlyle's French revolution: history with a hundred tongues --
Michelet and Taine: the people and the mob --
History as the story of freedom: constitutional liberty and individual autonomy. Stubb's Constitutional history: from township Parliament --
Modernity's first-born son: Burckhardt's Renaissance man --
A new world: American experiences. The halls of Montezuma: Diaz, Prescott and the conquest of New Spain --
Outposts in the wilderness: Parkman's history of the great West --
Henry Adams: from republic to nation --
A professional consensus: The German influence. Professionalization. --
German historicism: Ranke, God and Machiavelli --
Not quite a Copernican revolution --
The twentieth century. Professionalism and the critique of "Whig history": history as a science and history as an art --
"Structures": cultural history and the Annales school --
Marxism: the last grand narrative? --
Anthropology and history: languages and paradigms --
Suppressed identities and global perspectives: world history and micro-history.

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