Keith Windschuttle
THE KILLING OF HISTORY
How a discipline is being murdered by literary critics and social theorists
History has become an endangered species. Parisian academic fashions threaten to exterminate one of the most enduring disciplines of the Western intellectual tradition. The salons of theory claim the distinction between history and fiction can no longer be sustained.
Out in the environment of historical practice, however, Keith Windschuttle reports a different story. He debates real historical issues—from the discovery of America to the fall of Communism—to expose the pretensions of the would-be usurpers.
This clearly written, witty and timely book defends the scientific integrity of traditional history and upholds its status as literature.
" ... probably the most important and sobering new book of cultural criticism since Alan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind. It is also one of the most compelling books I have read all year." Roger Kimball, Wall Street Journal, August 8 1996
"The best book on the philosophy of history to be published in many years." Brian Ellis, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, La Trobe University
"One of the two most stimulating books of the year ... A devastating account of atrocities against the intellectual environment." Rowan Callick, Australian Financial Review, December 14, 1994
"We need more Keith Windschuttles, hundreds of them." Victor Davis Hanson, The Weekly Standard, September 22 1997
Nominating The Killing of History as one of the two best international books of the year, Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford University, called it: "... a masterly refutation of the pretentious theorizing of the enemies of the notion of historical truth and the traditional discipline of history." Times Literary Supplement, December 5 1997
"In its breadth, erudition and power and its many exquisite and devastating arguments, not to mention many hilarious asides, this book must rank as one of the most important defences of the West written in the last twenty years, certainly on a par with Alan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind (1987) or Jacques Barzun's magisterial From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life (2000). The Killing of History is a must read for those who believe in the idea of the West." Frank Ellis, The Salisbury Review, Winter 2001
Publication information
Publication date: December 1, 1994. Revised, expanded edition 1996
Recommended retail price: $29.95 (inc.GST)
Hard cover, dust jacket, 235 x 155 mm, 298 pages, notes, bibliography, index
ISBN 0 646 26506 7
Publisher:
Macleay Press, PO Box 477, Paddington NSW 2021
Telephone 02 9360 2534 Fax 02 9331 7368
email: sales@macleaypress.com
