Our Knowledge of the Past

• Introduction. The philosophy of historiography; 1. Consensus and historiographic knowledge; 2. The history of knowledge of history; 3. The theory of scientific historiography; 4. Historiographic opinion; 5. Historiographic explanation; 6. The limits of historiographic knowledge; Conclusion. Historiography and history.

Review of the hardback: 'This is an important work on a topic - the development of a scientific approach to historical knowledge. Tucker treats this problem both historically (tracing the emergence of a scientific approach back to early nineteenth-century historians such as Ranke) and also conceptually (grappling with the probabilistic nature of inferences about the past). He also identifies parallel developments in other disciplines including textual criticism and evolutionary biology. The book reminds me of Ian Hacking's work on the history of probability theory, in that both combine history and conceptual analysis in a fruitful way.' Elliott Sober, Stanford University