Thinking About History by Sarah Maza

Thinking About History Reviews

• 
  Brendan

  If wanting to know where to start in understanding historiography, this is the book for you! Providing a great reading list and overview of major works in the academic historical field…makes you want to just read everything mentioned!
• 
  goodreads Customer

  Well worth a read. Every chapter is concise and illustrate how perceptions of history have altered. My favourite was chapter 3 The History of What?
• 
  Mgt Consultant

  Dr Maza has done the impossible — produced a book that covers a vast array of details, many known only inside academia, that is compelling, readable, enjoyable, and leaves the reader with both a big picture framework and many unanswered questions. A pleasure for those who enjoy history both for its vivid details and for its deeper interpretations.
• 
  S. Clybor

  This book should be required reading for all graduate students or upper level history majors who intend to continue on to grad school. Maza offers a clear, insightful, and witty overview of historiography and historical methodologies, from the emergence of history as a field in the 19th century through the present. All the major paradigm shifts, the development of different schools, and all key debates are given consideration. I also appreciate her even handedness she explores controversial topics with enough critical distance to make her interpretations fair. Perhaps the only criticism worth mentioning (and its one that Maza acknowledges repeatedly): she is by training a Europeanist, and while she does engage African, Asian, Eastern European, and Latin American scholarship, she does so a bit less than she engages scholarship from the so called Atlantic World. This is not to say she ignores these fields she most certainly does not. I enjoyed in particular her reading of sub altern studies in India and the debates around Tim Snyders Bloodlands. However, the examples she draws tend to be from her areas of specialization. Perhaps this is unavoidable who can truly become an expert of all sub fields of an academic discipline in this day and age? The age of Diderot this is not. Notwithstanding, I think this is an excellent book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. She also draws heavily upon colleagues (current and former) from Northwestern University, where she teaches. As a result, I think, the book stands as an excellent statement of departmental philosophy. Disclaimer: I graduated from the NU History Department, so Id know :)
• 
  Jesse

  I found the book to be erudite and provided plenty to think about. In my case, I wanted to be able to best help teach students to think as closely as possible like historians, and this book was very useful in illuminating how vague my original aim was. Historians as a term and profession has varied over time and this book neatly outlines the varying positions.I did find it a bit hard going at times: the prose can be relentless at times, but it was than rewarding to keep going and i am glad that I read this book
• 
  Candy Burmeister

  The book itself was an eye opener. It bring new awareness and thought provoking. The shipping took a little longer than promised, but it was ok. It was for a book club so I listened and learned