A review by redbecca
In Defense of History by Richard J. Evans

4.0

I'm teaching this book in a graduate seminar on research methods, so I may have to update this review based on student response. I respect Evans as a historian, and chose to teach this book after having side-lined it a few years ago because of his important work in the Lipstadt/Irving trial. In fact, I wish that Evans would update the book to reflect his experiences as an expert witness in that trial. As it is, the book relates concerns among historians about postmodern philosophy in a way that I think will be good fodder for students. The argument, while sometimes a bit "stodgy" attempts to be even-handed in describing elements of postmodernism that have improved historical writing while also criticizing what Evans dubs "extreme relativism". One thing I appreciated when I first read the book, is that he critiques the representation of the historical profession among philosophers of history who only ever seem to write about historians of the 19th and early 20th centuries, as if there had been no changes in historical methods of research or writing since that time.