Abstract

A discussion of the development of the idea of history in Western thought, some current views of the nature of history and the condition of contemporary American academic history. The author rejects such views as that history is a science and that historical interpretation improves with greater distance in time from past events, and criticizes excessive specialization in the structure of graduate education in history and the prevailing canons of historical writing. He writes that today we have "better training, more resources, more monographs, more historians, and, generally speaking, worse history."—N. S. C.