Developed for students and general readers looking for a concise guide to the methods and purposes of historical study, this book seeks to explore the nature of historical evidence, to show how history comes to be written and to offer a basis on which "good" history can be distinguished from "bad."

In the modern West, we take for granted that what we call the “natural world” confronts us all and always has—but Before Nature explores that almost unimaginable time when there was no such conception of “nature”—no word, reference, or sense for it. Before the concept of nature formed over the long history of European philosophy and science, our ancestors in ancient Assyria and Babylonia developed an inquiry into the world in a way that is kindred to our modern science. With Before Nature, Francesca Rochberg explores that Assyro-Babylonian knowledge tradition and shows how it relates to the entire history of science. From a modern, Western perspective, a world not conceived somehow within the framework of physical nature is difficult—if not impossible—to imagine. Yet, as Rochberg lays out, ancient investigations of regularity and irregularity, norms and anomalies clearly established an axis of knowledge between the knower and an intelligible, ordered world. Rochberg is the first scholar to make a case for how exactly we can understand cuneiform knowledge, observation, prediction, and explanation in relation to science—without recourse to later ideas of nature. Systematically examining the whole of Mesopotamian science with a distinctive historical and methodological approach, Before Nature will open up surprising new pathways for studying the history of science.

Considering studying history at university? Wondering whether a history degree will get you a good job, and what you might earn? Want to know what it’s actually like to study history at degree level? This book tells you what you need to know. Studying any subject at degree level is an investment in the future that involves significant cost. Now more than ever, students and their parents need to weigh up the potential benefits of university courses. That’s where the Why Study series comes in. This series of books, aimed at students, parents and teachers, explains in practical terms the range and scope of an academic subject at university level and where it can lead in terms of careers or further study. Each book sets out to enthuse the reader about its subject and answer the crucial questions that a college prospectus does not.

This essay has grown out of an attempt to find the answers to problems basically inherent in the making of historical re search. Widespread among humanists is a vagueness of con cepts which many times makes it difficult or impossible to translate our way of thinking into the terms of natural science or vice versa. It sounds, sometimes, as if humanistic studies were a world of its own, rather than a part of the natural world we all1ive in. How long can we go on believing that there are different kinds of knowledge ~ To this conflict of theory, another is added: a feeling of urgency about cultural problems that are too often left to the future to solve. History is not, as some natural scientists tend to believe, a matter of no practical consequence. It is a virulent factor in political and social conflicts and a basic substance in the structure of our personalities. The present dynamic epoch raises with particular stress the problem of understanding the conditioning influence which the past exercises upon the present in each particular community. Such a substance is neither a toy for pastime hobbies nor an innocent weapon in the hands of dictators. Which is, then, the responsibility of the historian, both for what he does and for what he abstains from doing ~ The necessity to stay independent in order to approach objectivity makes for no easy answer.

An overview of the nature and methods of history as a field in social science, written for educators.