In Defence of History

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It is depressing to think that this uninformed yet totally self-confident work of naive provincialism should come from close to the heartlands of English culture. In Defence of History aims to defend a mainstream notion of history-writing against 'intellectual barbarians' (p. Evans’ In Defence of History is an attack on the influence of postmodernism on the practice of history.

Mõningaid juhtmõtteid korrutab Evans natuke tyytult palju (ning jääb mulje, et raamat võinuks seeläbi ka lyhem olla), ent pisut hämmastavalt näib, et sellest hoolimata pole mõned kriitikud suutnud neid tabada. His most recent books are Altered Pasts: Counterfactuals in History (2013) and The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815-1914 (2016).

The use of archaeology, and the relation of archaeology to the written record are issues which are strangely unmentioned, and an account of this and controversies specific to prehistory would have been valuable. For instance they argue that the reader of a text is free to interpret the text in literally any way they want to. Ongeacht welk 'kamp' (al is het boek ondanks de uitdagende titel allesbehalve dichotoom) uiteindelijk aan het juiste eind trekt, Evans' kernboodschap blijft bovenal: wars van alle (terechte) kritiek, mag de historicus wel degelijk en met zelfvertrouwen stevig in zijn of haar schoenen staan. All in all, well worth reading for students of history, or for the keenly interested general reader looking to get into the theoretical dynamics of how a history book is written.

Through the sources we use, and the methods with which we handle them, we can, if we are very careful and thorough, approach a reconstruction of past reality that may be partial and provisional, and certainly will not be objective, but is nevertheless true.He has little patience with those who seek to defend deniers (on grounds of free speech, mainly), maintaining that to be a historian worthy of being taken seriously, it is necessary to respect the truth. Social history is said to have initially been revolutionary in that it shifted emphasis from high politics and “great men” to social movements, economics and “cliometric” or statistical/quantitative approaches.