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The New History and the Old

The New History and the Old

Critical Essays and Reappraisals, Revised Edition

Gertrude Himmelfarb

ISBN 9780674013841

Publication date: 05/30/2004

For this updated edition of her acclaimed work on historians and the writing of history, Gertrude Himmelfarb adds four insightful and provocative essays dealing with changes in the discipline over the past twenty years.

In examining the effects of postmodernism, the illusions of cosmopolitanism, A. J. P. Taylor and revisionism, and Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history,” Himmelfarb enriches her illuminating exploration of the myriad ways—new and old—in which historians make sense of the past.

Praise

  • Himmelfarb has an intellect of steel as sharp as a razor. For those who enjoy intellectual debate and a concern for the value of the past, The New History and the Old is as splendid as an Olympic fencing match.

    —J. H. Plumb, Wall Street Journal

Author

  • Gertrude Himmelfarb is the author of many books, including intellectual biographies of Acton, Darwin, and Mill; essays on the Victorians, including Victorian Minds; the social history studies The Idea of Poverty and The De-Moralization of Society; and reflections on contemporary culture, On Looking into the Abyss and One Nation, Two Cultures.

Book Details

  • 288 pages
  • 0-11/16 x 5-1/2 x 8-1/4 inches
  • Belknap Press

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