The Houses of History: A Critical Reader in Twentieth-Century History and Theory

This is not a historical book, and I think the negative reviews are the result of people trying to read it as such. It is instead an instructional book, which intends to teach the reader about the different methods (houses) of history.Anyone engaged in a serious study of history needs to understand how to read a historical work in two ways. First, you must read in order to acquire the information that the book is presenting, obviously. Second, a reader must analyze how the information is being presented. This includes the analysis of the logical arguments being used, the work being cited as evidence of that argument, and determining the author's bias. (Every author has one, even "objective" authors) Even the decision of what information to include in a historical work is evidence of the author's bias. The failure to take this into account will inevitably mean the failure to fully understand the work you are reading. The various arguments, pieces of evidence, and personal dispositions of the authors who write about a particular subject comprise different methods of historical scholarship, and they will vary from author to author. In other words, the "historiography" of a subject will contain a variety of methods, which this book calls the "houses of history"The intent of this book is to explain these methods, and then provide examples of each. Toward this purpose, the book excels. Acquiring the skill to analyze the historiography of a work is an indispensable skill for the serious student of history.Again this is not a history book. For example, the excerpt presented in the book by E.P Thompson is not necessarily intended to teach the reader about the English working class, but is instead intended to present an example of the Marxist method of history. The reader of this book will gain much more by analyzing the style, bias, and argumentation of each example work than by reading them for their historical value alone.When read in this way, "The Houses of History" will help the reader to develop a more complete understanding of historical works. This book does not teach history, it teaches how to study history; and it does it very well.

Historiography (writings about the writing of history) is a rather arcane topic, generally of interest only to historians. Even history students roll their eyes at the thought of historiography, but the consideration of the approach to use in writing the history of an event or person is important. Knowing how others have approached their subjects is also important. This review, then, is aimed at history students.The Houses of History gives a good overview, with an example reading, for each of several main historical approaches, including Annales, social history, empiricism, psychohistory (yes, Isaac Asimov fans, we really use this term, but not quite in the way Hari Seldon did. Asimov merely extrapolated from a real school of history).When students take their required course in historiography or theory of history, they may very well find this a required text. I did.In its clarity and its approach, this is one of the better overviews of historical theory.

This is a must-have book for the serious student of history. In order to study "history" (whatever 'topic' you're getting into), you need to understand the discipline of history itself in order to have a broader appreciation for the historical topic is that you're studying. and to understand the discipline, it helps to understand that there are different approaches to studying history -- similarly to how there are different approaches to literary studies and critiques of a story. And in doing that, this book is a great addition to the history student's personal academic library. This book explores most of a dozen different approaches to historical study. along with each chapter is what i would call a 'case study' on a particular topic, given in a way that supports that chapter's historical approach. This book definitely helps to give the student a broader and more solid understanding of history and how to go about the study of it.

Good book, but mostly bought it for class rather then a personal read

The reason I recommend this book above any others on historigraphy, is that the chapters are succinct and virtually absent of pretentious academic-speak. In addition, each "house" of history comes with an example of the theory or methodology being discussed, which is useful for those of us who need "illustrations." While this work is extremely useful while taking an oft-painful historiography course, it is also a terrific handbook for developing the historiography section of a long research paper, thesis, or dissertation.

A very useful way to introduce the reader to the different schools of historical thought (i.e. empiricism, Marxism, etc). The editors picked some very good examples of texts to illustrate the different branches of modern historiography. I found the use of Braudel's THE MEDITERRANEAN AND THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN THE AGE OF PHILIP II for the "Annales" school particularly good.

It does it's job of being an academic information source of the different schools on Historical documentation and investigation.

This is a good foundational text for historical theory. It gives brief descriptions and textual examples of empiricism, marxism, psychohistory the Annales school, Historical sociology, quantitative history, Anthropology and ethnohistorians, narrative, oral history, gender and history, postcolonialism and poststructuralism/postmodernism. It's not perfect, especially in that it is already fifteen years old, and some of the categories could stand updating, like gender and history, but like I said, it's a great introduction, good for upper division undergraduate or graduate level study.

I purchased this as a textbook for my MA class in "Social Theory and History" and don't regret it!Each section clearly lays out the main position of each theoretical area, as well as major works and thoughts of historians.There is then a sample journal article or essay representing that school of thought.This book is no nonsense and explains all the key terms in language easy to understand for beginners.The only criticism I might have is that the bibliographies could have been longer, but realise this is probably an issue of space.

For those of us who maintain an informed but amateur interest in a wide range of subjects specialist books can all too often be over-kill. For my level of engagement with History this book, aimed at undergraduate level, takes me, with beautiful clarity, through key themes and concepts of the specialist historian but without losing me along the way. I applaud this book. I enjoyed it too.

A perfect book to supplement my university studies

Excellent reference source

very useful