Truth in History (Paperback, New Ed)

Why study history - and how. Harvard professor Handlin discusses just such difficult and enduring questions in this worthy collection of essays. Reflecting on his lengthy career and major achievements (including Boston's Immigrants and The Uprooted), Handlin expresses dismay at recent trends within the profession. He contrasts an earlier shared commitment of historians, and a community among them, to the current careerism and the politicization of historical thought. With the assurance - and vengeance - of an Old Testament prophet, he inveighs against "the erosion of the basic skills, atrophy of familiarity with the essential procedures," and "dissipation of the core fund of knowledge." Intolerant of shoddy work, he includes essays on how to read a word and count a number. The computer is no substitute for hard thought, Hamlin maintains; flashy social science methods must not tempt the historian from searching for the truth. He is most strongly critical not of neophytes but of masters, among them Michel Foucault (Madness and Civilization) and Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman (Time on the Cross); and the several topical essays included provide object lessons on how the job is to be done - properly. Much importance is ascribed to criticism, "the lifeblood of science, of literature, of thought itself," but the dominant theme is that historical research calls for work - and not just meticulous care with the record but also imagination, self-understanding, and openness to new perspectives. In "Living in a Valley," Handlin tells us that there's more than one way to view a mountain, and even for those living halfway up it's a long way to the peak. So why bother with the climb? For Handlin the answer is the truth in history: his and our recognition that "men and women walked the earth" and that "though it takes a whole world of knowledge to know them, they are knowable." A precious, hard-won recognition. (Kirkus Reviews)

One of the most eminent historians of our time offers here a perceptive guide to the study of history. "Truth in History" teaches how to read, how to analyze, how to discriminate. It is as helpful to the reader whose history is created daily in the news as it is to the professional historian whose field is in a crisis of disarray.

A Pulitzer Prize winner and mentor for more than a generation of American historians, Oscar Handlin instructs his readers in the fundamentals of his field. He tells us how to deal with evidence, how to discern patterns amid flux, how to situate ourselves in history, and how to recognize where fact shades subtly into opinion. He combines a historian's knowledge with a historiographer's breadth and a philosopher's temperament. He is concerned with a historian's limitations and with the ways one can operate honestly within those limitations. He brings a full appreciation of the past to his evaluation of what is modern. And while carefully examining recent developments in his discipline, he culls genuine achievements from the trends that confuse originality with true worth.

Handlin everywhere enlivens his discussion with brilliant details. As he pursues broad definitions of history and its uses, he also attends to specific subjects, showing how they bear directly on each other and on his concerns. He deals with Populism, capitalism, laissez faire, the two-party system, the New History, ethnicity, and roots, treating all with the flair of an accomplished man of letters. Only a scholar of Handlin's experience and expertise could have brought such a wealth of particular facts to an issue of such general importance--truth in history.

General

Imprint:	Harvard University Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	1979
First published:	1979
Authors:	Oscar Handlin
Dimensions:	77 x 77 x 27mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	448
Edition:	New Ed
ISBN-13:	978-0-674-91026-3
Categories:	Books > Humanities > History > General Books > History > General
LSN:	0-674-91026-5
Barcode:	9780674910263

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