Metahistory
Book description
In White's view, beyond the surface level of the historical text, there is a deep structural, or latent, content that is generally poetic and specifically linguistic in nature. This deeper content - the metahistorical element - indicates what an "appropriate" historical explanation should be.
Why read it?
1 author picked Metahistory as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
It’s a tough nut to crack, but totally worth it when you finally read it.
Although I write historical texts myself, I hadn’t considered how these texts are structured and mediated by historians. H. White showed me and many others that writing a historical text does not differ in form from writing a literary one.
Through a thoroughly structured argument, the book is a trip in the history of historiography and a careful analysis of the most important people who formed the way we look at our past today. Definitely one of the most influential theoretical texts of the last…
From Theodor's list on Books to make you reconsider what you know about history.
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