On the Teaching and Writing of History: Responses to a Series of Questions

Rating:
Summary: Bernard Bailyn, A First Rate Historian
Review: Bernard Bailyn, brilliant historian, answers a series of questions at Dartmouth College while in residence there on the subject of writing and teaching history. To the average reader, this guide will be not be hard to read, but probably not very necessary unless there is an intent to teach undergraduate or graduate students in a small class setting or if research is in process to complete a larger work on history. The book contains practical knowledge for all history teachers and offers some very general assumtions that must be kept in mind whether teaching or reporting on history. Well written and constructed, but intended for the serious historian.

Rating:
Summary: Bernard Bailyn, A First Rate Historian
Review: Bernard Bailyn, brilliant historian, answers a series of questions at Dartmouth College while in residence there on the subject of writing and teaching history. To the average reader, this guide will be not be hard to read, but probably not very necessary unless there is an intent to teach undergraduate or graduate students in a small class setting or if research is in process to complete a larger work on history. The book contains practical knowledge for all history teachers and offers some very general assumtions that must be kept in mind whether teaching or reporting on history. Well written and constructed, but intended for the serious historian.

Rating:
Summary: One of the wisest books on writing history ever written.
Review: Someone had the inspired idea of having one of the greatest living historians take part in an interview on his craft and profession. The result, ably edited and presented by Edward Connery Latham, is one of the wisest and most accessible books ever written about writing history. Bailyn's work spans the range of historical scholarship, and he is perhaps the most influential historian of the second half of the twentieth century; the list of his graduate students that appeared in the 1991 collection of essays published in his honor is in turn an honor role of the nation's most creative, able, and productive historians.

I would recommend this book enthusiastically to anyone who is considering entering the historical profession or anyone who simply wants to understand what it is that historians do. The questions, by Professors Jere R. Danielle and Charles T. Wood of Dartmouth, are incisive and provocative, and Bailyn's answers are uniformly enlightening and engaging. Everyone having a role in the creation of this wonderful book is to be congratulated.

-- Richard B. Bernstein, Adjunct Professor of Law, New York Law School

Rating:
Summary: One of the wisest books on writing history ever written.
Review: Someone had the inspired idea of having one of the greatest living historians take part in an interview on his craft and profession. The result, ably edited and presented by Edward Connery Latham, is one of the wisest and most accessible books ever written about writing history. Bailyn's work spans the range of historical scholarship, and he is perhaps the most influential historian of the second half of the twentieth century; the list of his graduate students that appeared in the 1991 collection of essays published in his honor is in turn an honor role of the nation's most creative, able, and productive historians.

I would recommend this book enthusiastically to anyone who is considering entering the historical profession or anyone who simply wants to understand what it is that historians do. The questions, by Professors Jere R. Danielle and Charles T. Wood of Dartmouth, are incisive and provocative, and Bailyn's answers are uniformly enlightening and engaging. Everyone having a role in the creation of this wonderful book is to be congratulated.

-- Richard B. Bernstein, Adjunct Professor of Law, New York Law School