Debating New Approaches to History - by Marek Tamm & Peter Burke

About the Book

A cutting-edge collection of articles and commentaries in which leading scholars from across the globe discuss and debate the main problems and challenges facing today's historians.

Book Synopsis

With its innovative format, Debating New Approaches to History addresses issues currently at the top of the discipline's theoretical and methodological agenda. In its chapters, leading historians of both older and younger generations from across the Western world and beyond discuss and debate the main problems and challenges that historians are facing today. Each chapter is followed by a critical commentary from another key scholar in the field and the author's response.

The volume looks at topics such as the importance and consequences of the 'digital turn' in history (what will history writing be like in a digital age?), the challenge of posthumanist theory for history writing (how do we write the history of non-humans?) and the possibilities of moving beyond traditional sources in history and establishing a dialogue with genetics and neurosciences (what are the perspectives and limits of the so-called 'neurohistory'?). It also revisits older debates in history which remain crucial, such as what the gender approach can offer to historical research or how to write history on a global scale.

Debating New Approaches to History does not just provide a useful overview of the new approaches to history it covers, but also offers insights into current historical debates and the process of historical method in the making. It demonstrates how the discipline of history has responded to challenges in society - such as digitalization, globalization and environmental concerns - as well as in humanities and social sciences, such as the 'material turn', 'visual turn' or 'affective turn'. This is a key volume for all students of historiography wanting to keep their finger on the pulse of contemporary thinking in historical research.

Review Quotes

"This book's self-styled framework for debating new approaches to history is to be applauded. ... Debating New Approaches to History is competent, skilled, and comprehensive." --Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"Anyone looking for a solid and highly original introduction to new developments in the history of historical writing need not look further than this absolutely riveting book. Some of the leading contemporary historians are writing lucidly and engagingly about cutting-edge developments in historiography." --Stefan Berger, Professor of Social History and Director of the Institute of Social Movements, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany

"A collection of stimulating and informative essays that serves extremely well the two ambitions announced in the title of the book: to introduce and debate methods and perspectives that have critically influenced the discipline of history in the last few decades, from globalization and postcolonial criticism to post-humanism and the Anthropocene. The debates here will enliven the classroom and inspire the practitioner." --Dipesh Chakrabarty, Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor of History, University of Chicago, USA

"This is an excellent cutting edge work that provides insights into some of the most exciting new approaches to historiography. It is essential both for graduate students looking to get a handle on new methodologies, and to established scholars who are seeking new paths for their work." --Eli Rubin, Professor of History, Western Michigan University, USA

"A challenging, contentious, thought-provoking book." --Carlo Ginzburg, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Los Angeles, USA

"A sophisticated, nuanced approach to emerging fields in the study of history. Marek Tamm's instructive introduction emphasizes the importance of new global perspectives informing current historiography, providing a framework for a volume which both indicates some of the problematical aspects of the new work and calls for theoretical reflection on its meaning, scope and potential contributions. This is a work that anyone interested in history and historical writing will want to read." --Gabrielle Spiegel, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor, Johns Hopkins University, USA

About the Author

Marek Tamm is Professor of Cultural History and Senior Research Fellow at the School of Humanities in Tallinn University, Estonia. He is also Head of Tallinn University Centre of Excellence in Intercultural Studies. His publications in English include an edited volume, Afterlife of Events: Perspectives on Mnemohistory (2015) and Crusading and Chronicle Writing on the Medieval Baltic Frontier (with Linda Kaljundi and Carsten Selch Jensen, 2011).

Peter Burke is Professor Emeritus of Cultural History and Life Fellow of Emmanuel College at Cambridge University, UK. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and has published 26 books, and his work has so far been translated into 33 languages. His publications include History and Social Theory (1992, revised edition 2005) and an edited book, New Perspectives on Historical Writing (1991, revised edition 2000).