In Defence Of History

Author : Richard J. Evans
Publisher : Granta Publications
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2012-11-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781847087904

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In Defence of History by Richard J. Evans Pdf

“A lucid, muscular, and often sly reflection” on the worth and purpose of historical scholarship by the award-winning author of The Third Reich Trilogy (Kirkus). In this volume, the renowned historian Richard J. Evans offers a fervent and deeply insightful defense of his craft and its importance to civilization. At a time when fact and historical truth are under unprecedented assault, Evans shows us why history is necessary. Taking us into the historians’ workshop, he offers a firsthand look at how good history gets written. In staunch opposition to the wilder claims of postmodern historians, Evans thoroughly dismantles the notion that a realistic grasp of history is impossible to attain. He then goes on to explain the deadly political dangers of losing a historical perspective on the way we live our lives. In the tradition of E.H. Carr’s What Is History? and G.R. Elton’s The Practice of History, Evans’ In Defense of History delivers “a model of lucid and intelligent historiographical analysis” (The Guardian, UK).

Author : Nicholas Piercey,Tom Stammers
Publisher : CRC Press
Page : 108 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2017-07-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9781351352369

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In Defence of History by Nicholas Piercey,Tom Stammers Pdf

Richard Evans wrote In Defence of History at a time when the historian's profession was coming under heavy attack as a result of the ‘cultural turn’ taken by the discipline during the late 1980s and the 1990s. Historians were being forced to face up to postmodern thinking, which argued that, because all texts were the product of biased writers who had incomplete information, none could be privileged above others. In this reading, there could be no objective history, merely the study of the texts themselves. While In Defence of History addresses all aspects of historical method, its key focus is on an extensive evaluation of this postmodern thinking. Evans judges the acceptability of the reasoning advanced by the postmodernists – and finds it badly wanting. He is strongly critical both of the relevance and of the adequacy of their arguments, seeking to show that, ultimately, they are guilty of failing to accept the logic of their own position. All texts are equally valid, or invalid, they suggest – while insisting that the products of their own school are in fact more ‘true’ than those of their opponents. Evans concludes by pointing out that this same argument could be advanced to suggest that the works of Holocaust deniers are just as valid as are those of historians who accept that the Nazis set out to commit genocide. So why, he demands, is no postmodernist willing to say as much? A devastating example of the usefulness of relentless evaluation.

Author : Richard J. Evans
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 496 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2015
Category : History
ISBN : 9780190228392

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The Third Reich in History and Memory by Richard J. Evans Pdf

"First published in Great Britain by Little, Brown Book Group."

Author : Edward Fursdon
Publisher : Springer
Page : 363 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 1980-06-18
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781349045433

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The European Defence Community: A History by Edward Fursdon Pdf

Author : John Arnold,John H. (Professor of History Arnold, School of History Classics and Archaeology Professor of History School of History Classics and Archaeology Birkbeck University of London),Professor John H Arnold
Publisher : Oxford Paperbacks
Page : 152 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2000-02-24
Category : History
ISBN : 9780192853523

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History: A Very Short Introduction by John Arnold,John H. (Professor of History Arnold, School of History Classics and Archaeology Professor of History School of History Classics and Archaeology Birkbeck University of London),Professor John H Arnold Pdf

Starting with an examination of how historians work, this "Very Short Introduction" aims to explore history in a general, pithy, and accessible manner, rather than to delve into specific periods.

Author : Georg Lukacs,György Lukács,John Rees,Slavoj Zizek
Publisher : Verso
Page : 196 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2002-08-17
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 1859843700

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A Defence of History and Class Consciousness by Georg Lukacs,György Lukács,John Rees,Slavoj Zizek Pdf

This work is commonly held to be the foundational text for Western Marxism. As Stalinism took over in Russia, Lukacs was subjected to attacks for deviation. In the 1920s he wrote this response.

Author : G.W.L. Nicholson,Mark Osborne Humphries
Publisher : McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Page : 709 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2015-11-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9780773597907

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Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919 by G.W.L. Nicholson,Mark Osborne Humphries Pdf

Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson's Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919 was first published by the Department of National Defence in 1962 as the official history of the Canadian Army’s involvement in the First World War. Immediately after the war ended Colonel A. Fortescue Duguid made a first attempt to write an official history of the war, but the ill-fated project produced only the first of an anticipated eight volumes. Decades later, G.W.L. Nicholson - already the author of an official history of the Second World War - was commissioned to write a new official history of the First. Illustrated with numerous photographs and full-colour maps, Nicholson’s text offers an authoritative account of the war effort, while also discussing politics on the home front, including debates around conscription in 1917. With a new critical introduction by Mark Osborne Humphries that traces the development of Nicholson’s text and analyzes its legacy, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919 is an essential resource for both professional historians and military history enthusiasts.

Author : Robert F. Berkhofer
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 402 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 1995
Category : Historia
ISBN : 0674069080

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Beyond the Great Story by Robert F. Berkhofer Pdf

What legitimate form can history take when faced by the severe challenges issued in recent years by literary, rhetorical, multiculturalist, and feminist theories? That is the question considered in this pathbreaking book. Robert Berkhofer addresses the essential practical concern of contemporary historians.

Author : Christopher Andrew
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 1093 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2012-04-26
Category : History
ISBN : 9780718197445

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The Defence of the Realm by Christopher Andrew Pdf

'Sensationally good ... A riveting story, the real-life spooks and spies far more compelling than anything you will see on the screen ... history doesn't come more fascinating than this' Evening Standard For over 100 years, the agents of MI5 have defended Britain against enemy subversion. Their work has remained shrouded in secrecy - until now. This first-ever authorized account reveals the British Security Service as never before: its inner workings, its clandestine operations, its failures and its triumphs. 'Definitive and fascinating ... whether reporting on Hitler in the 1930s, the Double-Cross System of the second world war, Zionist terrorism, the atom spies, the Cambridge spies, the so-called Wilson plot or the 1988 shooting of the IRA bombers in Gibraltar, this book is essential reading' Alan Judd, Spectator 'The British Secret Service has opened its archives - and even 'insiders' may be in for a surprise ... magisterial ... extremely readable' Oleg Gordievsky, The Times 'Compelling ... a feast' Max Hastings, Sunday Times 'A superb account ... He has captured every important detail of the Service ... unlikely to be surpassed for another 100 years' Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph

Author : Harry Harootunian
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 202 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2002-03-08
Category : History
ISBN : 0231505124

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History's Disquiet by Harry Harootunian Pdf

Acclaimed historian Harry Harootunian calls attention to the boundaries, real and theoretical, that compartmentalize the world around us. In one of the first works to explore on equal footing European and Japanese conceptions of modernity—as imagined in the writings of Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin, as well as ethnologist Yanagita Kunio and Marxist philosopher Tosaka Jun—Harootunian seeks to expose the problematic nature of scholarly categories. In doing so, History's Disquiet presents intellectual genealogies of such orthodox notions as "field" and "modernity" and other concepts intellectuals in the East and West have used to understand the changing world around them. Contrasting reflections on everyday life in Japan and Europe, Harootunian shows how responses to capitalist society were expressed in similar ways: social critics in both regions alleged a broad sense of alienation, particularly among the middle class. However, he also points out that Japanese critics viewed modernity as a condition in which Japan—without the lengthy period of capitalist modernization that characterized Europe and America—was either "catching up" with those regions or "copying" them. As elegantly written as it is controversial, this book is both an invitation for rethinking intellectual boundaries and an invigorating affirmation that such boundaries can indeed be broken down.

Author : Richard J. Evans
Publisher : Hachette UK
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2008-08-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9780786723782

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Lying About Hitler by Richard J. Evans Pdf

In ruling against the controversial historian David Irving in his libel suit against the American historian Deborah Lipstadt, last April 2000, the High Court in London labeled him a falsifier of history. No objective historian, declared the judge, would manipulate the documentary record in the way that Irving did. Richard J. Evans, a Cambridge historian and the chief advisor for the defense, uses this pivotal trial as a lens for exploring a range of difficult questions about the nature of the historian's enterprise. For instance, don't all historians in the end bring a subjective agenda to bear on their reading of the evidence? Is it possible that Irving lost his case not because of his biased history but because his agenda was unacceptable? The central issue in the trial -- as for Evans in this book -- was not the past itself, but the way in which historians study the past. In a series of short, sharp chapters, Richard Evans sets David Irving's methods alongside the historical record in order to illuminate the difference between responsible and irresponsible history. The result is a cogent and deeply informed study in the nature of historical interpretation.

Author : Peter Davies
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 404 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2018-06-27
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781351709521

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The Authorised History of British Defence Economic Intelligence by Peter Davies Pdf

This book is the first history of UK economic intelligence and offers a new perspective on the evolution of Britain's national intelligence machinery and how it worked during the Cold War. British economic intelligence has a longer pedigree than the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) and was the vanguard of intelligence coordination in Whitehall, yet it remains a missing field in intelligence studies. This book is the first history of this core government capability and shows how central it was to the post-war evolution of Whitehall's national intelligence machinery. It places special emphasis on the Joint Intelligence Bureau and Defence Intelligence Staff - two vital organisations in the Ministry of Defence underpinning the whole Whitehall intelligence edifice, but almost totally ignored by historians. Intelligence in Whitehall was not conducted in a parallel universe. This contrasts with the conventional wisdom which accepts the uniqueness of intelligence as a government activity and is symbolised by the historical profile of the JIC. The study draws on the official archives to show that the mantra of the existence of a semi-autonomous UK intelligence community cannot be sustained against the historical evidence of government departments using the machinery of government to advance their traditional priorities. Rivalries within and between agencies and departments, and their determination to resist any central encroachment on their authority, emasculated a truly professional multi-skilled capability in Whitehall at the very moment when it was needed to address emerging global economic issues. This book will be of much interest to students of British government and politics, intelligence studies, defence studies, security studies and international relations in general.

Author : Robert Brent Toplin
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : History
ISBN : UOM:39015056426714

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Reel History by Robert Brent Toplin Pdf

The author makes an argument for clemency in judging Hollywood's interpretations of history and thoroughly investigates its serious limitations and opportunities to construe history.

Author : Vicky Osterweil
Publisher : Bold Type Books
Page : 262 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2020-08-25
Category : History
ISBN : 9781645036678

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In Defense of Looting by Vicky Osterweil Pdf

A fresh argument for rioting and looting as our most powerful tools for dismantling white supremacy. Looting -- a crowd of people publicly, openly, and directly seizing goods -- is one of the more extreme actions that can take place in the midst of social unrest. Even self-identified radicals distance themselves from looters, fearing that violent tactics reflect badly on the broader movement. But Vicky Osterweil argues that stealing goods and destroying property are direct, pragmatic strategies of wealth redistribution and improving life for the working class -- not to mention the brazen messages these methods send to the police and the state. All our beliefs about the innate righteousness of property and ownership, Osterweil explains, are built on the history of anti-Black, anti-Indigenous oppression. From slave revolts to labor strikes to the modern-day movements for climate change, Black lives, and police abolition, Osterweil makes a convincing case for rioting and looting as weapons that bludgeon the status quo while uplifting the poor and marginalized. In Defense of Looting is a history of violent protest sparking social change, a compelling reframing of revolutionary activism, and a practical vision for a dramatically restructured society.

Author : G. A. Cohen
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 471 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2020-05-05
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780691213002

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Karl Marx's Theory of History by G. A. Cohen Pdf

First published in 1978, this book rapidly established itself as a classic of modern Marxism. Cohen's masterful application of advanced philosophical techniques in an uncompromising defense of historical materialism commanded widespread admiration. In the ensuing twenty years, the book has served as a flagship of a powerful intellectual movement--analytical Marxism. In this expanded edition, Cohen offers his own account of the history, and the further promise, of analytical Marxism. He also expresses reservations about traditional historical materialism, in the light of which he reconstructs the theory, and he studies the implications for historical materialism of the demise of the Soviet Union.