A Brief History of History: Great Historians and the Epic Quest to Explain the Past

A Brief History of History: Great Historians and the Epic Quest to Explain the Past

by Colin Wells
A Brief History of History: Great Historians and the Epic Quest to Explain the Past

A Brief History of History: Great Historians and the Epic Quest to Explain the Past

by Colin Wells

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Overview

What Daniel Boorstin did for science in The Discoverers, Colin Wells now does for history in A Brief History of History. An accessible and lively biography of history as a living idea, this book brings together evocative sketches of the great historians with concise summaries of their most important works. Moving forward through the ages, Wells shows us how such brilliant minds have changed our understanding of history, how history itself moved forward over time as a way of approaching the past, and why “history” is a startlingly fluid concept, with an evolutionary course—a story—all its own.
History is the turf on which we fight our culture wars. Given its humble origins as a minor literary genre in ancient Greece, the study of history stands today as perhaps the most successful monument to the global spread of Western civilization, rivaling even science in its ubiquity. Yet it did not have to turn out that way. While tracing the evolution of history, Wells shows how this branch of knowledge has at times been rejected and scorned by those who questioned its very legitimacy.
Wells begins by arguing that history has two “parents” in the ancient Greek world, epic poetry and science, and that its first two practitioners, Herodotus and Thucydides, each took after one of those parents respectively. This dichotomy serves as a backdrop for the larger narrative that follows, in which “the scientist” dominates the writing of history until very recent times, when “the storyteller” makes a comeback.
A riveting blend of vibrant prose and penetrating insight, A Brief History of History is a must for anyoneinterested in how we look at the past.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781599216928
Publisher: Globe Pequot Press
Publication date: 10/14/2008
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
File size: 457 KB

About the Author

Colin Wells is the author of Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Saudi Arabia.

Table of Contents


Prologue: The Traveler's Tale ix
1 "A Possession for Always" 1
2 "From the Foundation of the City" 19
3 Barbarians (and Believers) at the Gate 40
4 Clio Nods 62
5 The Wall of Faith 84
6 History Reborn 107
7 Point, Counterpoint 129
8 New Worlds 141
9 The Challenge of Reason 163
10 Reason and Imagination Pass Each Other in the Night 182
11 Making It (Sort of) in the Enlightenment 200
12 History Goes to School and Gets a Job 221
13 The Last Amateur 237
14 History Discovers Art and Culture 247
15 Deep Time 264
16 Vast Impersonal Forces 279
17 The Return of the Storyteller 294 Epilogue: History Comes of Age 311 Suggested Reading 315 Acknowledgments 319 Notes 321 Index 331

Recipe

What Daniel Boorstin did for science in The Discoverers, Colin Wells now does for history in A Brief History of History. An accessible and lively biography of history as a living idea, this book brings together evocative sketches of the great historians with concise summaries of their most important works. Moving forward through the ages, Wells shows us how such brilliant minds have changed our understanding of history, how history itself moved forward over time as a way of approaching the past, and why “history” is a startlingly fluid concept, with an evolutionary course—a story—all its own.
History is the turf on which we fight our culture wars. Given its humble origins as a minor literary genre in ancient Greece, the study of history stands today as perhaps the most successful monument to the global spread of Western civilization, rivaling even science in its ubiquity. Yet it did not have to turn out that way. While tracing the evolution of history, Wells shows how this branch of knowledge has at times been rejected and scorned by those who questioned its very legitimacy.
Wells begins by arguing that history has two “parents” in the ancient Greek world, epic poetry and science, and that its first two practitioners, Herodotus and Thucydides, each took after one of those parents respectively. This dichotomy serves as a backdrop for the larger narrative that follows, in which “the scientist” dominates the writing of history until very recent times, when “the storyteller” makes a comeback.
A riveting blend of vibrant prose and penetrating insight, A Brief History of History is a must for anyone interested in how welook at the past.
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