Gossman (French, Princeton U.) illuminates the problematic relationship between history and literature, and shows how each discipline both challenges and undermines the other's absolutist pretensions. In particular, he address the essential historicity of literature and the essentially literary-textual nature of history through an inquiry into the work of the Romantic historians, especially Thierry and Michelet. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Literature as History represents a unique way to rethink history. Mario T. García, a leader in the field of Chicano history and one of the foremost historians of his generation, explores how Chicano historians can use Chicano and Latino literature as important historical sources.

Ivan Jablonka’s History Is a Contemporary Literature offers highly innovative perspectives on the writing of history, the relationship between literature and the social sciences, and the way that both social-scientific inquiry and literary explorations contribute to our understanding of the world. Jablonka argues that the act and art of writing, far from being an afterthought in the social sciences, should play a vital role in the production of knowledge in all stages of the researcher’s work and embody or even constitute the understanding obtained. History (along with sociology and anthropology) can, he contends, achieve both greater rigor and wider audiences by creating a literary experience through a broad spectrum of narrative modes. Challenging scholars to adopt investigative, testimonial, and other experimental writing techniques as a way of creating and sharing knowledge, Jablonka envisions a social science literature that will inspire readers to become actively engaged in understanding their own pasts and to relate their histories to the present day. Lamenting the specialization that has isolated the academy from the rest of society, History Is a Contemporary Literature aims to bring imagination and audacity into the practice of scholarship, drawing on the techniques of literature to strengthen the methods of the social sciences.

In our world of sophisticated literary theory and cliometrics, the gap between literature and history, between literary scholars and historians, has at times seemed to be widening. Drawing on essays written over the course of a distinguished teaching career, Lionel Gossman illuminates the many facets of the problematic relationship between history and literature and shows how each discipline both challenges and undermines the other's absolutist pretensions. In his first chapters Gossman underlines the historicity of the very category of literature and explores the political and social implications of the notions we have of it. Literature emerges as something whose meaning and content are not as self-evident as we think; instead, what is designated by the term literature is defined by a larger cultural structure that is constantly changing. Gossman then turns to the interweaving of history and literature in historical writing itself, showing how literary narratives, philosophy, and politics are inextricably bound up in the texts of two major Romantic historians, Augustin Thierry and Jules Michelet. Seeing ourselves in relation to our Romantic predecessors--set out sympathetically and fully here by Gossman--should cause us to reflect on the current disjunction between literature and history and to try to imagine new ways in which one practice may assist and enrich the other. The final chapters deal directly with the question of the relationship between history and literature, both historically and as a contemporary problem. The last essay in particular addresses the twin issues of the place of narrative in historiography and the alleged incommensurability of historical narratives. Gossman's detailed inquiries into the work of the Romantic historians and his thoughtful reflections on his own assumptions and practices as a scholar exemplify the highest ideals of humanistic scholarship. This eloquent and erudite work challenges us to rethink our notions about literature and history while enriching our understanding of both disciplines.

Ideas of history: Ktema es aiei : Thucydides' concept of "learning through history" and its realization in his work / Kurt A. Raaflaub -- The distribution of character judgments in Thucydides / Matthieu de Bakker -- Ascribing motivation in Thucydides : between historical research and literary representation / Melina Tamiolaki -- The causes of the Athenian pestilence and the plague / Paul Demont -- Representations of time and space: The presence of the past in Thucydides / Jonas Grethlein -- The Cylon conspiracy : Thucydides and the uses of the past / Tim Rood -- Katâ ethne kai kata poleis : from the catalogues to the archaeologies / Roberto Nicolai -- In the shadow of Pericles: Athens' Samian victory and the organization of the Pentekontaetia / Marek Węcowski -- Transformations of landscapes in Thucydides / Vassiliki Pothou -- Thucydides and politics: "Reading" Athens : foreign perceptions of the agency of leaders and demos in Thucydides / Sarah Brown Ferrario -- Thucydides and the masses / Suzanne Saad -- Thucydides' Pericles : between historical reality and literary representation /Panos Christodoulou -- Aspects of the narrative: The balance of power and compositional balance: Thucydides, book I / June Allison -- Blurring the boundaries of speech: Thucydides and indirect discourse / Paula Debnar -- The narrative strategy: observations on the 7th book of Thucydides / Anna Lamari -- "The dot on the i" : Thucydidean epilogues / Hans-Peter Stahl -- The narrative legacy of Thucydides: Polybius book 1 / Nikos Miltsios -- The language of Thucydides: The litotes of Thucydides / Pierre Pontier -- History as presence : time, tense and narrative modes in Thucydides / Rutger J. Allan -- Textual structure and modality in Thucydides' military exhortations / Antonis Takmakis, Charalambos Themistokleous -- Attributive discourse in the speeches of Thucydides / Maria Pavlou -- Difficult statements in Thucydides / Jonathan Price -- The language of Pericles / Daniel P. Tompkins.

From The Epic of Gilgamesh to Harry Potter, this rollicking romp through the world of literature reveals how writings from all over the world can transport us and help us to make sense of what it means to be human.