What Is History Now?

E.H. Carr's What is History?, first published in 1961, was the most influential book to examine writing and thinking about history this century. To commemorate the book's forthieth anniversary, David Cannadine has gathered an all-star cast of contributors to ask and seek answers to E.H. Carr's classic question for a new generation of historians: what does it mean to study history at the start of the twenty-first century? The contributors pose this question anew for the most important and lively subfields of history writing today. For example, Alice Kessler-Harris ponders "what is gender history now?" while Paul Cartledge asks "what is social history now?" This volume stands alongside E.H. Carr's classic, paying tribute to his seminal inquiry while moving the debate into new territory, ensuring its freshness and relevance for a new century of historical study.
About the Author:

FELIPE FERNANDEZ ARMESTO Professor of History, Queen Mary, University of London. His many books include Truth: A History and a Guide for the Perplexed, Bantam Press, 1997 ANNABEL BRETT Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Her publications include Liberty, Right and Nature, Cambridge University Press, 1997 PAUL CARTLEDGE Professor of Ancient History, University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Clare College. He has edited the Cambridge Illustrated History of Ancient Greece, Cambridge University Press, 1997 LINDA COLLEY Leverhulme Research Professor in History, London School of Economics and Political Science. Among her many publications includes the bestselling Britons: Forging a Nation, 1707-1837, Vintage, 1996, which won the Wolfson Prize RICHARD J. EVANS Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge, and fellow of Gonville and Caius College. He is the author of In Defence of History, Granta, 2000 ALICE KESSLER HARRIS Professor of History, Columbia University. She is co-editor of U.S. History as Women's History, University of North Carolina Press, 1995 OLWEN HUFTON Leverhulme Research Professor, University of Oxford and a fellow of Merton College. Her many publications include The Prospect Before Her. A History of Women in Western Europe, I: 1500-1800, Alfred A Knopf Inc, 1996 SUSAN PEDERSEN Professor of History, Harvard University. Her publications include Family Policy and the Origins of the Welfare State: Britain and France, 1914-45, Cambridge University Press, 1993 MIRI RUBIN Professor of European History and Director of Research, Queen Mary, University of London. Her publications include Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture, Cambridge University Press, 1992.