The Pursuit of History

Citation

Tosh, J. (2021). The Pursuit of History: Aims, Methods and New Directions in the Study of History (7th ed.). Routledge.

Chapter Summary

The seventh edition has thirteen chapters in roughly 300 pages (Routledge lists 324 pages; Google Books lists 308 for the print edition). The publisher's description says the book starts from fundamental questions: what the point of studying history is, how the past can be known, and whether an objective historical truth exists and can be reached.

Chapters 1–3: Historical Awareness; The Uses of History; Mapping the Field

The opening chapters deal with the questions the publisher highlights: why history is studied and what claims it can support. The title of Chapter 3, "Mapping the Field", points to an overview of the discipline before the book turns to sources and method. According to the description, Tosh argues that history remains a coherent discipline that still bears the imprint of its nineteenth-century origins, despite the sense of fragmentation that postmodernism produced.

Chapters 4–5: The Raw Materials; Using the Sources

These two chapters take up the evidence on which historians depend. The publisher's description says that the book makes readers aware of how far historical knowledge is conditioned by the character of the sources, and that the seventh edition gives fuller treatment to digitization in the section on source criticism.

Chapter 6: Writing and Interpretation

The title points to the step from handling sources to constructing an interpretation and a written account, which the publisher's subtitle describes as the book's concern with "methods".

Chapter 7: The Limits of Historical Knowledge

The title suggests a discussion of what historical knowledge can and cannot establish, which connects with the publisher's questions about whether an objective historical truth exists and whether it can be accessed.

Chapters 8–9: History and Social Theory; Cultural Evidence and the Cultural Turn

Two chapters on the influence of theory and of cultural approaches on historical explanation. The publisher's description of the book as a guide to the "theory and practice of history" places these chapters in the theory half of that phrase.

Chapters 10–12: Gender History and Postcolonial History; Memory and the Spoken Word; History Beyond Academia

These chapters survey newer directions in the discipline: gender and postcolonial approaches, memory and oral testimony, and the presence of history outside the university. The publisher links the last of these to the greater weight now given to digitization in relation to public history.

Chapter 13: Conclusion: The Topicality of History

The book ends, according to the publisher, with a forthright reminder that historical perspective illuminates major problems in the present.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–3: Purposes and Field

• Historical awareness: the title concept of Chapter 1, the starting point for why the past matters.
• The uses of history: the question of what studying history is for, which gives Chapter 2 its title.
• Mapping the field: the overview of the discipline that Chapter 3's title announces.

Chapters 4–7: Sources, Interpretation and Limits

• Primary sources (the raw materials): the evidence examined in Chapter 4.
• Source criticism: the assessment of sources in Chapter 5, which the seventh edition extends to digitized sources.
• Interpretation: the move from evidence to a written argument in Chapter 6.
• The limits of historical knowledge: the problem of objectivity treated in Chapter 7.

Chapters 8–13: Theory and New Directions

• Social theory and the cultural turn: the subjects of Chapters 8 and 9.
• Gender and postcolonial history: the approaches grouped in Chapter 10.
• Memory and oral history: the sources and themes of Chapter 11.
• History beyond academia: the public and popular presence of history discussed in Chapter 12.
• Topicality: the claim in Chapter 13 that historical perspective bears on present problems.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Method and historiography in one book. Thomas W. Gallant, in praise quoted on the publisher's page for the previous edition, wrote that the book strikes a very nice balance between tracing historiography, delineating historical methodology and discussing the major developments of recent decades. The contents bear this out: Chapters 4–7 are about working with evidence, and Chapters 8–12 are about approaches.
• Clarity. The reviews the publisher quotes for the previous edition return to the writing. Catherine Dewhirst called the book a joy to read, and Nicholas Karn said it surveys trends more clearly and concisely than its main competitors.
• Practical learning aids. The publisher says the edition keeps marginal glosses, illustrations and suggestions for further reading, and it points to a companion website.
• Updating. The publisher states that this edition adds fuller treatment of digitization in relation to source criticism and public history, extends the text and references to more American and global scholarship, and ends with a reminder of history's relevance to the present. A reviewer of the sixth edition, Robert James, singled out new material on public history, digitised sources, historical controversies, transnational history and the nature of the archive.

Limitations

• Each approach gets one chapter. The thirteen chapters in about 300 pages give social theory, the cultural turn, memory and oral history, and history beyond academia one chapter each, with gender and postcolonial history sharing one. The book is a map of these fields, and readers who want depth in any one of them must go on to specialist work.
• A stated point of view. The publisher describes the book as arguing that history is a coherent discipline in spite of postmodern fragmentation. Readers should treat that as a position, and the chapters on theory and the limits of knowledge are the place to test it against other accounts.
• Scope of the added material. The publisher presents the American and global scholarship as an expansion in this edition. A student who needs a comparative history of historical writing in different parts of the world should add a dedicated work on global historiography.
• A 2021 snapshot. The seventh edition appeared in 2021, so developments in digital methods and public history after that date are outside it.

Where It Fits in the Course

In the historical methods course list, Tosh is the general textbook: a single volume that covers why history is studied, how sources are handled, and how the discipline has changed. John H. Arnold's History: A Very Short Introduction and E. H. Carr's What Is History? are shorter and are good first steps. Arnold asks how historians find and read sources, and Carr argues that facts are selected and interpreted by historians who are shaped by their own society. Either can be read before Tosh, or in parallel with Chapters 1–3.

Marc Bloch's The Historian's Craft is an unfinished classic reflection on historical observation, the criticism of sources and causation, and it pairs well with Chapters 4–6. Hayden White's Metahistory and Georg Iggers, Q. Edward Wang and Supriya Mukherjee's A Global History of Modern Historiography are more demanding books for later in a course: White on the narrative choices behind historical works, and Iggers and colleagues on the history of historical writing across several regions. Tosh's chapters on the limits of historical knowledge and on theory (Chapters 7–9) are the natural preparation for White, and Chapters 10–12 on newer directions lead on to the wider survey by Iggers and colleagues.

How to Use This Book

The book is written for history undergraduates at the start of a degree and is also recommended by the reviewers the publisher quotes for undergraduate and graduate theory-and-method courses. No prerequisite is stated. Some experience of reading historical scholarship will make the examples more meaningful.

A practical plan:

• Core: Chapters 1–7. Read Chapters 1–3 before beginning source-based coursework, and use Chapters 4–6 when working with primary sources and planning an essay or dissertation.
• By interest: Chapters 8–12. Choose the approach closest to your project (theory, culture, gender and postcolonial history, memory, public history) and read it alongside one article or monograph that uses it.
• To finish: Chapter 13, the conclusion on the topicality of history.

Use the marginal glosses and further reading lists to build a reading list for a specific project. Pair the book with a sample article from a historical journal, so the chapters on interpretation and writing can be tested against a real argument.