Reviews
Winner of the 2014 Wallace K. Ferguson Prize the best scholarly book on non-Canadian history. This award is given by the Canadian Historical Association., Winner of the 2014 Wallace K. Ferguson Prize the best scholarly book on non-Canadian history. This award is given by the Canadian Historical Association., " On Historical Distance is a fascinating and very important book that should be read by all historians. . . . A deeply original, challenging and thought-provoking study of the evolving history of history by one of our leading historians of historiography, this book should provoke a lively debate among historians and should be assigned as essential reading for classes on historical methods and historiography."-John Marshall, John Hopkins University, "For some time Mark Phillips has been thinking about historical distance, publishing several important essays pointing towards ways of theorizing it. This work is an adventurous synthesis of his various historiographical experiments on the topic, and it makes a formidable and exciting narrative. . . . This book carries Phillips's ideas to a new level and will be widely cited."-Jonathan Lamb, Vanderbilt University , " On Historical Distance throws into relief a feature of historical writing so fundamental that it has escaped sustained attention until now. Combining a heuristic analysis of kinds of distance with examples culled from three distinct periods, Mark Phillips also ventures into literary history and history painting. A thoughtful and original work."--Michael McKeon, Rutgers University , "Mark Phillips's perceptive analysis of the interplay between proximity and distance in representations of the past combines the skills of an intellectual historian with the trained sensibility of a critic of literature and art."--Peter Burke, Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, " On Historical Distance throws into relief a feature of historical writing so fundamental that it has escaped sustained attention until now. Combining a heuristic analysis of kinds of distance with examples culled from three distinct periods, Mark Phillips also ventures into literary history and history painting. A thoughtful and original work."-Michael McKeon, Rutgers University , "Phillips's work, particularly Society and Sentiment , is widely cited among cultural and literary historians; this book caries his ideas to a new level and will be even more influential."-Jonathan Lamb, Vanderbilt University , " On Historical Distance throws into relief a feature of historical writing so fundamental that it has escaped sustained attention until now. Combining a heuristic analysis of kinds of distance with examples culled from three distinct periods, Mark Phillips also ventures into literary history and history painting. A thoughtful and original work."--Michael McKeon, Rutgers University, "Phillips's work, particularly Society and Sentiment , is widely cited among cultural and literary historians; this book caries his ideas to a new level and will be even more influential."--Jonathan Lamb, Vanderbilt University, "A richly nuanced analysis of how historians cope with the 'otherness' of the past."--Penelope J. Corfield, American Historical Review, " On Historical Distance is a fascinating and very important book that should be read by all historians. . . . A deeply original, challenging and thought-provoking study of the evolving history of history by one of our leading historians of historiography, this book should provoke a lively debate among historians and should be assigned as essential reading for classes on historical methods and historiography."--John Marshall, John Hopkins University, " On Historical Distance is a fascinating and very important book that should be read by all historians. Beautifully written in elegant, economical and engaging prose, the book wears its considerable learning very lightly as it scintillatingly brings meta-historical and philosophical insights of Gadamer, Ricoeur, Collingwood, Nussbaum, Taylor and others to bear on its topics in remarkably crisp, clear and unpretentious prose. A deeply original, challenging and thought-provoking study of the evolving history of history by one of our leading historians of historiography, this book should provoke a lively debate among historians and should be assigned as essential reading for classes on historical methods and historiography."-John Marshall, John Hopkins University, " On Historical Distance is a fascinating and very important book that should be read by all historians. . . . A deeply original, challenging and thought-provoking study of the evolving history of history by one of our leading historians of historiography, this book should provoke a lively debate among historians and should be assigned as essential reading for classes on historical methods and historiography."--John Marshall, Johns Hopkins University, "Mark Phillips's perceptive analysis of the interplay between proximity and distance in representations of the past combines the skills of an intellectual historian with the trained sensibility of a critic of literature and art."-Peter Burke, Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, "Mark Phillips's perceptive analysis of the interplay between proximity and distance in representations of the past combines the skills of an intellectual historian with the trained sensibility of a critic of literature and art."--Peter Burke, Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, "Phillips's work, particularly Society and Sentiment , is widely cited among cultural and literary historians; this book caries his ideas to a new level and will be even more influential."--Jonathan Lamb, Vanderbilt University
