The Houses of History: A Critical Reader in Twentieth-Century History and Theory

This is a book for history majors and (perhaps) for those trying to understand theories of history, as I was. My rating of 3 and a half stars reflects the difficulty I had in reading it more than its value on the topic. I think it's a pretty great treatment of the subject, but it's not an easy read. I did find value in it, but much of the book was too far out of my comfort zone. I'm writing this to explain that history specialists may have a better experience with this book than I did.

One of my favourites, this is a most useful book especially for grad students who may be unfamiliar with the nuances or broad outline of many different types of history, e.g. anthropological and poststructuralist approaches to history. The signifier 'Houses' in the title resonates with astrological lore, but there is nothing mystical, occultic, or superstitious about this text. It is a straight-ahead presentation of history is some of its various facets. The book contains actual examples of writings in each of the areas of history it explicates in each chapter. Each chapter is written by a different author and so, has the feel of a 'reader'. Nonetheless, the whole book hangs together well, and the reader eventually should come away with show more a more comprehensive understanding of different variants of history. show less

Anna Green and Kathleen Troup wrote their book The Houses of History for a limited audience, serious history majors. The book looks at twelve “houses”, the theoretical methods that historians use to examine and evaluate the historical record. The authors write a short history of each house and explain in plain English the focus of each house’s dialogue. Each explanation is followed by a well-chosen example from each school of thought. They are very well chosen, Green and Troup’s explanation of postmodernism is, like all descriptions I have seen, slightly off focus, but the text they picked as an example illuminates and clarifies their dialogue.

The book was helpful for me to understand the thought processes used by authors of show more other works I have read and I wish I had found this book before my senior year. It demonstrated several methods of evaluating evidence that will be helpful in my studies. The additional readings listed at the end of each section included titles I had already been introduced to in class discussions as founding texts for that school of thought and other titles intended to further illustrate that “house”.

Green, Anna, and Kathleen Troup. The Houses of History. New York: New York University Press, 1999. show less