Author(s): Carlo Ginzburg (Author), Anne C. Tedeschi (Author)
Publisher: University of California Press
Publication Date: September 2, 2012
Edition: First Edition
Language: English
Print length: 336 pages
ISBN-10: 0520274482
ISBN-13: 9780520274488
Book Description
Carlo Ginzburg’s brilliant and timely new essay collection takes a bold stand against naive positivism and allegedly sophisticated neo-skepticism. It looks deeply into questions raised by decades of post-structuralism: What constitutes historical truth? How do we draw a boundary between truth and fiction? What is the relationship between history and memory? How do we grapple with the historical conventions that inform, in different ways, all written documents? In his answers, Ginzburg peels away layers of subsequent readings and interpretations that envelop every text to make a larger argument about history and fiction. Interwoven with compelling autobiographical references, Threads and Traces bears moving witness to Ginzburg’s life as a European Jew, the abiding strength of his scholarship, and his deep engagement with the historian’s craft.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“No other living historian approaches the range of [Ginzburg’s] erudition. Every page of Threads and Traces, his latest work to appear in English, offers an illustration of it.” — Perry Anderson ― London Review Of Books Published On: 2012-04-26
“Ginzburg’s range is remarkable . . . rich in references to and insights about diverse historical perspectives.” ―
Publishers Weekly Published On: 2011-09-19
“A collection of essays by the profoundly original, intellectually wide-ranging, Italian-Jewish historian Carlo Ginzburg . . . an illuminating collection of chapters, deftly translated from the original Italian by Anne C. and John Tedeschi.” — Benjamin Ivry ―
Forward Published On: 2012-04-13
“These essays humanely and generously explore the question of how history ought to be written.” — Jonathan Beckman ―
The Literary Review Published On: 2012-04-01
“Surprising pace, intellectual range, and learned discourse is typical throughout the book. . . . Artfully constructed essays.” — Raymond Grew, University of Michigan ―
Jrnl Of Interdisciplinary History Published On: 2012-12-11
“This is a brilliant text, the product of a scholar of rare breadth and knowledge.” — Ben McDonald, University of Melbourne ―
Melbourne Historical Jrnl Published On: 2012-12-01
From the Inside Flap
Carlo Ginzburg weaves a spell-binding web of learning and surprises as he explores the question of truth in history and fiction and his own multiple engagement with the past. Whether dealing with Montaignes cannibals, Italian shamans, or anti-Semitic forgeries, Threads and Traces is a powerful and moving statement of the stakes in historical knowledge from one of our greatest historians. Natalie Zemon Davis, author of Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds
Previous Praise for Carlo Ginzburg
Ginzburg is a historian with an insatiable curiosity, who pursues even the faintest of clues with all the zest of a born detective until every fragment of evidence can be fitted into place. J.H. Elliott,
New York Review of Books
Carlo Ginzburg has many claims to be considered the outstanding European historian of the generation which came of age in the late Sixties. Certainly few have equalled him in originality, variety and audacity. Perry Anderson,
London Review of Books
Ginzburg’s scholarship is dazzling and profound.
Publishers Weekly
From the Back Cover
“Carlo Ginzburg weaves a spell-binding web of learning and surprises as he explores the question of truth in history and fiction and his own multiple engagement with the past. Whether dealing with Montaigne’s cannibals, Italian shamans, or anti-Semitic forgeries, Threads and Traces is a powerful and moving statement of the stakes in historical knowledge from one of our greatest historians.” ―Natalie Zemon Davis, author of Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds
Previous Praise for Carlo Ginzburg
“Ginzburg is a historian with an insatiable curiosity, who pursues even the faintest of clues with all the zest of a born detective until every fragment of evidence can be fitted into place.” ―J.H. Elliott,
New York Review of Books
“Carlo Ginzburg has many claims to be considered the outstanding European historian of the generation which came of age in the late Sixties. Certainly few have equalled him in originality, variety and audacity.” ―Perry Anderson,
London Review of Books
“Ginzburg’s scholarship is dazzling and profound.” ―
Publisher’s Weekly
About the Author
Carlo Ginzburg is retired from Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa (Italy). He is the author of numerous books that have been translated into English including The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller.
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