Beyond the great story : history as text and discourse

What legitimate form can history take when faced by the severe challenges issued in recent years by literary, rhetorical, multiculturalist, and feminist theories? That is the question considered in this long-awaited and pathbreaking book. Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., addresses the essential practical concern of contemporary historians; he offers a way actually to go about reading and writing histories in light of the many contesting theories. Berkhofer ranges through a vast archive of recent writings by a broad range of authors. He explicates the opposing paradigms and their corresponding dilemmas by presenting in dialogue form the positions of modernists and postmodernists, formalists and deconstructionists, textualists and contextualists. Poststructuralism, the New Historicism, the New Anthropology, the New Philosophy of History - these and many other approaches are illuminated in new ways in these comprehensive, interdisciplinary explorations. From them, Berkhofer arrives at a clear vision of the forms historical discourse might take, advocates a new approach to historical criticism, and proposes new forms of historical representation that encompass multiculturalism, poetics, and reflexive (con)textualization. He elegantly blends traditional and new methodology; assesses what the "revival of the narrative" actually entails; considers the politics of disciplinary frameworks; and derives coherent new approaches to writing, teaching, reviewing, and reading histories.--Front flap of dustjacket

What legitimate form can history take when faced by the severe challenges issued in recent years by literary, rhetorical, multiculturalist, and feminist theories? That is the question considered in this long-awaited and pathbreaking book. Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., addresses the essential practical concern of contemporary historians; he offers a way actually to go about reading and writing histories in light of the many contesting theories.

Berkhofer ranges through a vast archive of recent writings by a broad range of authors. He explicates the opposing paradigms and their corresponding dilemmas by presenting in dialogue form the positions of modernists and postmodernists, formalists and deconstructionists, textualists and contextualists. Poststructuralism, the New Historicism, the New Anthropology, the New Philosophy of History-these and many other approaches are illuminated in new ways in these comprehensive, interdisciplinary explorations.

From them, Berkhofer arrives at a clear vision of the forms historical discourse might take, advocates a new approach to historical criticism, and proposes new forms of historical representation that encompass multiculturalism, poetics, and reflexive (con)textualization. He elegantly blends traditional and new methodology; assesses what the revival of the narrative actually entails; considers the politics of disciplinary frameworks; and derives coherent new approaches to writing, teaching, reviewing, and reading histories.

Frontmatter Preface (page ix) 1 The Postmodernist Challenge (page 1) 2 Narratives and Historicization (page 26) 3 Historical Representations and Truthfulness (page 45) 4 The New Rhetoric, Poetics, and Criticism (page 76) 5 Emplotment: Historicizing Time (page 106) 6 Partiality as Voice and Viewpoint (page 138) 7 Representing Multiple Viewpoints and Voices (page 170) 8 Politics and Paradigms (page 202) 9 Reflexive (Con)Textualization (page 243) Notes (page 285) Acknowledgments (page 367) Index (page 371) What legitimate form can history take when faced by the recent challenges issued by literary, rhetorical, multiculturalist and feminist theories? In answering this question, the author seeks to offer a way actually to go about reading and writing histories in light of the many contesting theories.