A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century

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Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Apr 7, 2009 - History - 544 pages
Treating the practice of history not as an isolated pursuit but as an aspect of human society and an essential part of the culture of the West, John Burrow magnificently brings to life and explains the distinctive qualities found in the work of historians from the ancient Egyptians and Greeks to the present. With a light step and graceful narrative, he gathers together over 2,500 years of the moments and decisions that have helped create Western identity. This unique approach is an incredible lens with which to view the past. Standing alone in its ambition, scale and fascination, Burrow's history of history is certain to stand the test of time.
 

Contents

Greece
5
The Greeks in Asia
51
Universal History Pragmatic History
64
ACityforSale
90
Plutarch
111
Men tit to be slaves
141
The Lasr Pagan Historian
149
General Characteristics ofAncient IIistorioTaphy
158
The Revival of Secular History
215
Yillehardouin
244
is Ami qua nanism Legal History and
281
Philosophic History
313
England and France
345
Constitutional Liberty
380
American Experiences
397
The German Influence
425

The People of God 169
168
The Making of Orthodoxy and
178
Kings Bishops and Others
187
The English Church and the English People
202
e The Twentieth Century
438
Select Bibliography
486
Index
500
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About the author (2009)

John Burrow was for many years Professor of Intellectual History at the University of Sussex. From 1994 to 2000 he was the first Professor of Intellectual History at Oxford. He is author of A Liberal Descent, Gibbon, Whigs and Liberals: Continuity and Change in English Political Thought, The Crisis of Reason: European Thought 1848-1914, and That Noble Sphere of Politics. He will be Distinguished Visiting Professor at Williams College, Massachusetts, January to May 2008.

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