Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method

By Carlo Ginzburg

Book Overview

"In the diversity of methods and objects of analysis it offers, Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method offers a fresh perspective on this Italian historian who has become such an essential point of reference in many domains of cultural study today." -- Dana Polan, Camera Obscura.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 080184388X
• ISBN13: 9780801843884
• Release Date: March 1992
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.6" x 6.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

History vs. Science

I read this book after reading The Cheese and the Worms and found only one essay of interest, the one of the title. There, Ginzburg argues that history cannot be studied profitably from the scientific (meaning Galilean, or mathematical physics) standpoint, there is inadequate empirical basis for it. Rather, the methods of art history and Sherlock Holmes (clues in small exceptional things, like a deformed fingernail) provide better results. I think he may have something here. For the opposite viewpoint, which in my opinion is wrong, see Buchannan's Ubiquity.