Description
We look to historians for reliable information about the past. But modern and postmodern critics have challenged history's credibility and objectivity, seeing written history as a product of contemporary culture. Can we find a way to approach history with new confidence? This book reveals the rational basis for historians' descriptions, interpretations and explanations of past events. It defends the practice of history as more reliable than has recently been acknowledged and argues that historians make their accounts of the past as fair as they can and avoid misleading their readers. It concludes by explaining and discussing postmodern criticisms of history.