A brilliant essay on what history is and how historians work, by one of the most admired scholars and writers in the field. A successor to the classic What Is History? by E. H. Carr.
What is history, and why should we study it? Is there such a thing as historical truth? Is history a science? One of the most accomplished historians at work today, John Lewis Gaddis, answers these and other questions in this short, witty, and humane book. The Landscape of History provides a searching look at the historian's craft, as well as a strong argument for why a historical consciousness should matter to us today.
Written in the tradition of Marc Bloch and E. H. Carr, The Landscape of History is at once an engaging introduction to the historical method for beginners, a powerful reaffirmation of it for practitioners, a startling challenge to social scientists, and an effective skewering of postmodernist claims that we can't know anything at all about the past. It will be essential reading for anyone who reads, writes, teaches, or cares about history.
"The Landscape of History explores recent, surprising convergences of natural science and human history and does so with clarity, charm and easy erudition. Gaddis's book is a real tour de force: a delight to read, and a light-hearted celebration of the odd, 'fractal' patterns that intellectual and other forms of human and natural history exhibit."--William H. McNeill
