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Article: In Defence of History.(Review)
- Article from:
- Journal of Social History
- Article date:
- June 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Journal of Social History. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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By Richard J. Evans (London: Granta Books, 1997. vii plus 307pp. Australia $39.95.).
E.H. Carr's What is History? and G.R. Elton's The Practice of History have a Siamese-twins quality. Great equals and opposites, each helped to "make" the other. Over thirty years later, these aging and grey-haired tomes soldier on unrepentantly. Although no longer on the cutting edge, they simply won't lie down or be put out to pasture, despite the clamouring of numerous competitors. In 1995, for example, Keith Jenkins explicitly attempted to displace the duo with a postmodernist challenge, the execrably written On "What is History?": from Carr and Elton to Rorty and White, ...