

Their approaches parallel, in intriguing ways, the new sciences of chaos, complexity, and criticality. In doing so, they combine the techniques of artists, geologists, paleontologists, and evolutionary biologists. Like cartographers mapping landscapes, historians represent what they can never replicate. Gaddis points out that while the historical method is more sophisticated than most historians realize, it doesn't require unintelligible prose to explain. The Landscape of History provides a searching look at the historian's craft, as well as a strong argument for why a historical consciousness should matter to us today.

What is history and why should we study it? Is there such a thing as historical truth? Is history a science? One of the most accomplished historians at work today, John Lewis Gaddis, answers these and other questions in this short, witty, and humane book.
