Historical Evidence and Argument

by David Henige

Overview

Historians know about the past because they examine the evidence. But what exactly is “evidence,” how do historians know what it means—and how can we trust them to get it right? Historian David Henige tackles such questions of historical reliability head-on in his skeptical, unsparing, and acerbically witty Historical Evidence and Argument. “Systematic doubt” is his watchword, and he practices what he preaches through a variety of insightful assessments of historical controversies—for example, over the dating of artifacts and the textual analysis of translated documents. Skepticism, Henige contends, forces us to recognize the limits of our knowledge, but is also a positive force that stimulates new scholarship to counter it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299214135
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	01/20/2006
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	340
File size:	709 KB

About the Author

David Henige is the African studies bibliographer at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and editor of several national series on African history.

Table of Contents

<table of contents, p. vii> Contents Acknowledgments 000 1 Declaring Victory 000 2 Traveling Hopefully 000 3 Half Empty, or Half Full? 000 4 Doubt as Friend 000 5 When Too Much is Not Enough 000 6 The Many Births of Frank Lloyd Wright 000 7 Destroying in Order to Save 000 8 Speaking of History 000 9 Words, Words, Words 000 10 Anachronisms and Falsehoods 000 11 Myth as Undergrowth 000 12 Apples and Oranges 000 13 We're Changing Everything . . . Again 000 14 Antics With Semantics 000 15 When the Dog doesn't Bark 000 16 Numbers and Pictures 000 17 He Says, She Says 000 18 Access/ibility 000 19 Bringing Texts Up to Code 000 20 The End of . . .? 000 Bibliography 000

Editorial Reviews

Henige takes the study of historical methodology to a new level.”—David C. Conrad, State University of New York–Oswego

“There is no other book like this one in its breadth and scope. . . . A deftly acerbic series of sketches of the many ways that historians misread and misuse evidence.”—Eric Gable, Mary Washington College

From the Publisher