Partner Nancy F., Foot Sarah R. (eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Historical Theory

SAGE Publications, 2013. — 544 p.The editors introduce the core areas of current debate within historical theory, bringing the reader as up to date with continuing debates and current developments as is possible. This important handbook brings together in one volume discussions of the role of modernity, empiricism, realism, post-modernity and deconstruction in the historian′s craft. Chapters are written by leading writers from around the world and cover a wide spread of historical sub-disciplines, such as social history, intellectual history, narrative, gender, memory, psycho-analysis and cultural studies, taking in, along the way, the work of thinkers such as Paul Ricouer, Michel Foucault and Hayden White. This compendium of new essays on theory of history (rather than history′s theory) is the very model of what a scientific handbook (an honorable scholarly genre which has been much degraded of late by commercialization) ought to be. The problems which motivated the interest in theory of history from the 1930s and 40s down to just yesterday have now been pretty much assimilated to a new lingua franca of metahistorical discourse. A new generation of scholars can now treat as what goes without saying many of the "undecidables" of the older generations′ discourses. The essays display an openness to innovation and manifest a kind of authority which stand above both polemics and apologetics.