History and Historians: a Histographical Introduction by Mark T Gilderhus - Book Report/Review Example

History and Historians: a Histographical Introduction by Mark T. Gilderhus Summary/Review of the Book This book is generally used for courses such as Historiography and Historical Methods at the graduate and the undergraduate levels. Readership of this book also reveals that this is an ideal supplementary text when it comes to courses such as those related to western civilization and intellectual history. The text is simple and short, and the book is fairly brief, rather to the point. The introduction part of the text illustrates a brief, yet thorough, a well balanced, and comprehensive overview of the thoughts and thinking of the western history from the ancient times to the present date. The text seems highly focused and though the single text prevails, it seems so catchy that each reader feels that it is written to their respective level. At the same time, it covers the major aspects of the subject such as philosophical view point of history, historical methods, historiography, cultural contemporary wars, debates about post modernism, etc. The way this book moves on is simply awesome for readership and this makes it a must read. The first chapter of the book is related to the discussion on why to study history; it starts with giving the reasons itself such as curiosity – as identified by researcher as the true cause of all discoveries. Other than this, it goes on to state that knowing the past is the only way to bring the world to order today, as it leads to the identification of the cause and effect relationship, studying various identities of people, identifying the consequential and resultant chain reaction followed by various actions and so on. The second and the third chapters have been devoted to the review and discussion pertinent to the evolution associated to the historical writings along with their respective approaches. The author initiates the ancient historians alongside the discussion of the history of ancient states i.e. Greece and Rome, moving on to reviewing the influence created by the Christian thought – a model not in favor of which history depicted that God had other plans. As the western Christianity began to divide, this influence also disappeared, and further beyond, the historians belonging to various religious persuasions began writing histories that supported their perspective about the past. Some historians rejected one religious approach and presented facts supporting their own view point, and this altered the history to a much greater extent. Eventually, this led to romanticism and nationalism during the 19th century, giving way to a much more scientific approach, more commonly known as research and analysis. By some means, this was a retaliation that emphasized on religion and God on man, but this can also be considered as retaliation to the regeneration emphasizing the greatness associated with the classical civilizations. The fourth chapter of the book is about the philosophical aspect of history correlating it to the speculative aspect, whereby Gilderhus states that there are three schemas, namely the cyclical, providential and progressive and then these are discussed in a brief yet complete manner on page 49 of the book. The fifth chapter of the book is about analyses pertinent to the philosophical approaches towards the history reflected in positivist approach i.e. general laws that exist and rule the consequents of human affairs, alongside the idealist thought, which is based on the fact that history was all about men owning free will, and history is not repeatable. The sixth chapter of the book is fairly simple as it gives an overview or a summary form of the various research papers pertinent to history. The final chapter summarizes the various states of historiography as it has evolutionized over the past century. Importance of the Book This book is used as a reference book and as a main text book at various levels for various courses. The fact that makes it stand out is that generally, history books are very boring and seemingly worthless – however, anyone having read this book will not agree much to this fact. This book is a lot different than the casual or normal history books. Despite the fact that it is meant to learn, unlike other text books that are aimed at making students’ lives difficult as in reading and comprehending the language and the text itself, this book is written in very simple language and aims at presenting the incidents as an interesting story to make the reader feel their presence in the past and developing a long lasting memorable impact. This is the reason why instructors recommend this book as a main or supplementary text because it aims at developing the insight for the reader, giving a closer and deeper look into the past, and at the same time, developing opinions and making students understand and comprehend the historical lessons. The language of the book is simple; though lacking the pictorial classification as much as it should be but yet, the plain text too, once gotten into, makes it difficult to take the momentum away. This book is a master piece in itself; it illustrates the past as if the reader is actually present there. The sequentiality in the text is amazing. Its easier to understand, comprehend, analyze and explain. In just 156 pages including the index, it seems that the author has presented an idea that emerged over a period of centuries and how it improved and how history evolved. It actually draws attention towards the history of historical thoughts and their origin. The prime importance goes to the first chapter where the author describes on why to study history in the first place. Over all, the book is an awesome experience and a must read recommended for all, particularly those interested in reading about history and historical affairs. Importance of the Ideas by Gilderhus: Gilderhus has been extremely tremendous author when it comes to explanation of text particularly when referred about historical text, and communicating history. The author has prime intelligence in terms of selecting the idea, the words, the themes, and so on. This work is a master piece within itself as it admires and attracts the readership. Gilderhus’ idea has always been to use simple, precise words and to keep the text brief, concise, yet complete by all forms to ensure that there is no boredom involved the work that is read by thousands and millions of people across the world. The importance of the ideas presented by the author is to provide a comprehendible illustration on how, where and what went wrong in the history and what is the present scenario, how the past has shaped itself and moved to where it stands today. Gilberhus’ has been renowned amongst his companions over his skillfulness associated with the way he presents his ideas; simply and easily not just for himself but for the readers too. The importance of this idea is for the readers to understand how history shapes the surroundings and the proceedings on which today is based, as it is truly said that past shapes for the present and present shapes up for the future. The criticality associated with these ideas is that every tomorrow is a reflection for today; therefore, we must work hard to such an extent that we can shape our future the way we want by working out our present, along the lines as our ancestors shaped their future by altering their then present. History teachers a lot of lessons that need to be learnt, and moving with the situation and scenario is one of them… Read More