The Methods and Skills of History A Practical Guide

Like its predecessors, the third edition of one of our most popular texts, The Methods and Skills of History: A Practical Guide, is a dynamic text/workbook that combines theory with "hands on" practice, providing engaging essays, documents, and exercises designed to make history more meaningful and accessible to student readers—whether they are majoring in history, taking a history course as an elective, or simply reading history on their own—as well as strengthen their critical-thinking and communication skills.

While this third edition retains the essence of its highly successful predecessor in the form of its practical, timely advice on research and writing and “field-tested” exercises, it features important modifications as well, including a reorganization of the chapters to progress even more smoothly from a theoretical discussion of the nature of history (Part I), to practical considerations involved in confronting historical accounts (Part II) to actually “doing” history (Part III). The final section (Part IV) provides a brief overview of how history as a discipline evolved and how it relates to other academic disciplines, as well as appendices that comprise interesting historical documents and helpful source references and bibliographies.

Michael J. Salevouris ia a Professor of History at Webster University in St. Louis. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Minnesota and currently teaches courses in history methods, British and European history, the history of warfare, and the history of disease and medicine. In addition to various reviews and articles he is the author of “Riflemen Form”: The War Scare of 1859-1860 in England, and (with Conal Furay) Learning American History: Critical Skills for the Survey Course. His interests include golf, tennis, mystery novels, model building, and traveling far and wide when the opportunity presents itself.

A native of Omaha, Nebraska. Conal Furay received his doctoral degree from St. Louis University. Before becoming a Professor Emeritus at Webster University he taught such courses as American Business History and the Western in film and story. Previous publications include The Grass-Roots Mind in America, and (with Michael Salevouris) Learning American History: Critical Skills for the Survey Course. Current interests are Nebraska Cornhusker football, golfing with friends, and a late-blooming enjoyment of reading National Geographic magazine from cover to cover.

Preface ix

PART I Historical Thinking 1

Chapter 1 The Uses of History 3

Exercises Set A 7

Exercises Set B 9

Chapter 2 The Nature of History: History as Reconstruction 11

Exercises Set A 17

Exercises Set B 20

Chapter 3 Historical Thinking: Continuity and Change 23

Exercises Set A 30

Exercises Set B 35

Chapter 4 Historical Thinking: Multiple Casualty in History 39

Exercises Set A 48

Exercises Set B 55

Chapter 5 Historical Thinking: Context 59

Exercises Set A 65

Exercises Set B 69

PART II Confronting the Historical Account 75

Chapter 6 Libraries: Real and Virtual 77

Exercises Set A 87

Exercises Set B 97

Chapter 7 Reading History 105

Exercises Set A 113

Exercises Set B 121

Chapter 8 History on Film 125

Exercise 135

PART III Doing History 137

Chapter 9 Evidence 139

Exercises Set A 147

Exercises Set B 157

Chapter 10 Oral History and Statistics 165

Exercises Set A 174

Exercises Set B 177

Chapter 11 Interpretation 181

Exercises Set A 190

Exercises Set B 197

Chapter 12 Writing: The History Paper 205

Exercises Set A 216

Exercises Set B 220

PART IV Historiography 225

Chapter 13 The History of History 227

Exercise 240

Chapter 14 History and the Disciplines 243

Exercises 249

Appendix A Fur Trade on the Upper Missouri River: Documents 257

Appendix B Source References and Bibliographies 265

Appendix C Sample Oral History Release Form 269

Suggestions for Further Reading 271

Index 277

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