Brief History Of History: Great Historians And The Epic Quest To Explain The Past

Brief History Of History: Great Historians And The Epic Quest To Explain The Past synopsis

What Daniel Boorstin did for science in The Discoverers,Timothy Ferris for cosmology in Coming of Age in theMilky Way, and Robert Heilbroner for economics in TheWorldly Philosophers, Colin Wells now does for history inA Brief History of History. The most accessible, concise,and clear-sighted biography ever of history as a livingidea, this book brings together evocative sketches of thegreat historians with concise summaries of their keyworks. From its humble origins as a minor literary genrein ancient Greece, to its modern-day status as perhapsthe most successful monument to the global spread ofWestern civilization, Wells traces the remarkableevolution of this branch of knowledge, and shows how ithas long been the turf on which we fight our culturewars.