Telling the Truth About History - Hardcover

This book, by three major American historians, grapples with the problem of historical truth. Seeking the roots of contemporary historical study in the Enlightenment, the authors argue that a model of historical research, based on neutrality and objectivity, served historians well until World War II. Then postmodernism suggested history could not tell us the truth about the past, and the rise of social history produced a huge flood of statistics, which swamped the search for historical truth. Accepting that much of history teaching has been flawed, the authors nevertheless argue for an affirmation of historical knowledge against the doubts of the sceptics and the relativists, and guide us through the shoals of political correctness and multiculturalism.

Joyce Appleby is professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles.