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This classic introduction to the study of history invites the reader to stand back and consider some of its most fundamental questions - What is the point of studying history? How do we know about the past? Does an objective historical truth exist and can we ever access it?
In answering these central questions, John Tosh argues that, despite the impression of fragmentation created by postmodernism in recent years, history is a coherent discipline which still bears the imprint of its nineteenth-century origins. Consistently clear-sighted, he provides a lively and compelling guide to a complex and sometimes controversial subject, while making his readers vividly aware of just how far our historical knowledge is conditioned by the character of the sources and the methods of the historians who work on them.
The fifth edition has been revised and updated throughout, with the addition of new sections on:
· Global history
· Comparative history
· Postcolonialism
· Women’s and gender history
· Oral history and memory
Lucid and engaging, this new edition retains all the user-friendly features that have helped to make this book a favourite with both students and lecturers, including marginal glosses, illustrations, suggested further reading and boxed guides to key events and people.
- Sales Rank: #89470 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Routledge
- Published on: 2009-12-15
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.30" h x .80" w x 6.60" l, 1.40 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 364 pages
Features
- Used Book in Good Condition
Review
“An excellent introduction to methodology in history which will be read with advantage by historians at any stage of their development.”
History
“Can easily be handled by the general reader wanting to know what is happening to history today.”
British Book News
From the Back Cover
“An excellent introduction to methodology in history which will be read with advantage by historians at any stage of their development.”
History
“Tosh writes clearly and pungently...a very satisfactory as well as stimulating vade-mecum for all who work at history.”
Times Higher Education Supplement
This classic introduction to the study of history invites the reader to stand back and consider some of its most fundamental questions - What is the point of studying history? How do we know about the past? Does an objective historical truth exist and can we ever access it?
In answering these central questions, John Tosh argues that, despite the impression of fragmentation created by postmodernism in recent years, history is a coherent discipline which still bears the imprint of its nineteenth-century origins. Consistently clear-sighted, he provides a lively and compelling guide to a complex and sometimes controversial subject, while making his readers vividly aware of just how far our historical knowledge is conditioned by the character of the sources and the methods of the historians who work on them.
The fifth edition has been revised and updated throughout, with the addition of new sections on:
· Global history
· Comparative history
· Postcolonialism
And substantially revised sections on:
· Women’s and gender history
· Oral history and memory
· Cultural History
Lucid and engaging, this new edition retains all the user-friendly features that have helped to make this book a favourite for students and lecturers, including marginal glosses, illustrations, suggested further reading and boxed guides to key events and people.
John Tosh is Professor of History at Roehampton University and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He is the author of several works on historiography, notably Why History Matters (2008) and Historians on History (2nd ed., 2008).
About the Author
John Tosh is Professor of History at Roehampton University and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He is the author of several works on historiography, notably Why History Matters (2008) and Historians on History (2nd ed., 2008).
Most helpful customer reviews
46 of 46 people found the following review helpful.
Tosh explains an often obtuse topic well
By Marc Comtois
Early in his book, Tosh explains that "[h]ow the past is known and how it is applied to present need are open to widely varying approaches." 'Pursuit of History' is a solid effort by Tosh to trace the origins of historical study and the methodologies that have evolved over time. He explains the difference between popular history and academic history and explains the importance of the latter. The first half of the book is dedicated to showing how historians should properly do their work, including how to find and use sources as well as how to write and interpret historical findings. All are well covered. The second half of the book is much more philosophical in tone. Tosh tackles a number of questions relating to objectivity, true knowledge and the reliability of so-called facts. Simply put, he describes the battle between those who believe history is a cumulative discipline and those who view it as a relative and interpretive exercise as well as all of those with positions in between. Most importantly, he defends the discipline's viability and importance against those who attack it, including the postmodernists (though he doesn't dismiss all of the postmodernist contributions to the field). His notes and references are plentiful and he is fair with each of the "schools" of history.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Summary of Tosh-Pursuit of History-5th ed
By Nom de Plume
John Tosh's, The Pursuit of History is a good introduction for both advanced undergraduate students and graduate students wishing to gain a global view of history as a profession and the diverse methods used in the field. In its fifth edition, Tosh expands the present historiography and details the impact past works have had on the thoughts and methods of today. Covering the historiography from the professionalization of the field in the 1880s through the Annales school of thought, Marxist theory and postmodernism, Tosh is able to touch upon the origins of each style and introduce the social histories of the 1960s and 1970s and the postcolonialist writing of the 1990s. As a historian's history, Tosh contributes to a global view of the study of history and asks if it is a science or a craft.
The Pursuit of History is divided into eleven chapters. The first three chapters covered oral histories and the didactic approach for studying history "for its own sake." By introducing different methodologies in the interpretation of history and its purpose, Tosh was able to approach the topic of mapping the field in chapter three. He divided the field into political, social, economic, religious, world, global, local, and microhistory. As a justification for all the diverse subfields he stated, "[e]very work of history strike some kind of balance between the individual and society, between the material and the mental, and between the local and the global" (p. 84). These chapters shed light onto the function and rationale of the professional historian and the contributions the field offers.
Chapters four through six described the process in which information is attained. Sources were the focus as they led to the type of interpretation the historian used to bring out their content. Tosh painstakingly covered the types of sources that exist, how they survived, and the reasons they were made and/or kept. As sources are the life of the work, two different approaches can be taken. The historian can let the sources lead their work or formulate questions that the sources grapple with. These are source-oriented or problem oriented approaches. Once the sources have been found and assessed the manner in how they are to be interpreted can follow three forms. The historian can write in a descriptive or narrative style that, as Tosh defined, re-created the past, or the sources can be analyzed to interpret the past. These chapters have been mainly descriptive (p. 175).
Once these themes were presented, the limits to the historicism of the field were described in chapters seven and eight. The ideas of language and its usage was questioned. The idea of "deconstruction" to include the underlying meaning of what the originator meant or may have meant, subconsciously, became the example for postmodernism. The relationship of postmodernists with history is expanded as Tosh examined its strengths and limits. To rebuttal postmodernist that say, "historicism is dead and should be abandoned as a serious intellectual endeavor," Tosh wrote, "historians point out not only that the weaknesses of historical enquiry have been grossly exaggerated but that a broadly historicist stance towards the pass is culturally indispensable" (p. 205). Tosh believes Marxism is one of the best theories (p. 223). He consistently returned to cite E.P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class. Chapter eight describes the influence Marxist interpretation has had and the contributions that it continues to make in history. This presented a bias as Tosh's expertise is in African history where an "us-them" struggle can be applied easily. Class struggle and power are main themes in Marxist theory. Rene Genovese used it in his work Roll, Jordan Roll where parallels are made between feudalism and plantation economies and the relationship between those in power over those who are subjugated.
Chapters nine through eleven wrap up the cultural and social histories that rose following the revisionists of the post World War II era. The 1960s and 1970s brought a "bottom-up" approach and shifted from political "elite" history and wrote the story of those who did not have a voice. Gender and woman's studies were brought to life as the historiography had mostly neglected them. These studies offered postcolonialism a foothold where subaltern studies first made an impact in the 1980s (p. 292). Marxist "history from the bottom" helped develop postcolonialism as its, "main purpose... was to make up the silencing of the poor that had occurred throughout the colonial period" and hoped that, "[p]easants and workers would be brought into the light of history" (p.292-293). Tosh ended the book with memory and oral histories and the means by which they are used and applied in national and local history. These histories contribute to identity of a region. Limits to memory are present but the contributions to the historiography of people throughout the world rests on these sources as not all has been written down. If it is not recorded, these oral histories and social memories will be lost forever.
Tosh's writing style allowed for the lay historian's understanding. His focus is to inform a general reading audience that spans multiple levels of academia. As a weakness in the fifth edition, Tosh did not revise the book to the most current trends in historical writing as historians move away from the Institutional synthesis to incorporate a wider range of participants. This was not addressed. As a revised edition I expected something beyond the scope of understanding that was written in the 1990s. Tosh did not develop these thoughts. He also neglected the entire western hemisphere as postcolonialism, though a subcontinental interpretation of history, was not applied to colonial America. Even with some shortcomings, this book is an extensive start to understanding the historiography of our field and allows the developing historian to gain a wider and keener outlook on writing in history.
Isaac Pietrzak-University of Houston
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
A stimulating book for nonhistorians too
By Dr. Joe
I've long enjoyed reading history books---international history, ancient history, history of the western U.S.---as both an escape from the tribulations of my own era into the very different life situations in the past and also as a source of many damn good stories. History, broadly speaking, can be a history of most anything. One learns much essential information about art by studying art, music by studying the history of music, etc
So history is a an enormously broad subject, and it requires a certain logic and mindset to see things clearly. Tosh shows us the many cognitive distortions that lead to a mis-recording or misuse of history in a most engaging and penetrating way---ideas that are useful for mental discipline in many areas. He points out, for example, how some people use the genesis of WW I, when many major European nations were armed to the teeth, to argue that a high military presence can bring about war, yet others use the beginning of WW II, when the initial approach of Britain to German agression was appeasement, to argue the opposite--that being unarmed and passive can encourage conflict.
After reading Tosh's book, you will realize that all historical accounts have their own biases and points of view. There are many realities, not just one Reality. You may find this both exciting and disturbing, as in that haunting question of Pilate's: "What is truth?"
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