In recent years, controversy in history has not just been about methodology; there have been several scandals. Lipstadt in which he served as an expert witness for Lipstadt as she proved the truth of the Holocaust against the falsehood of Irving’s denialism. Historians then are not always providing the absolute truth, and most of them would not claim to, but altogether, are providing the probable truth, in which they have done their best to establish by following the rigorous rules of evidence. in January, 1999; and the German edition, Fakten und Fiktionen: Über die Grundlagen historischer Erkenntnis, translated by Ulrich Speck and published by Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, in October 1998.

Mõningaid juhtmõtteid korrutab Evans natuke tyytult palju (ning jääb mulje, et raamat võinuks seeläbi ka lyhem olla), ent pisut hämmastavalt näib, et sellest hoolimata pole mõned kriitikud suutnud neid tabada.For me it also succeeds in its argument that we can know about the past and we can find meaning in the past. Because as Evans himself said, Derrida and Foucault "do get a mention", but they are not part of the background, they are dismissed as part of what Evans is criticizing. And as for (2) my guess would be that is exactly what Collini said it was: a series of coarsely distorted rebuttals of coarsely distorted ideas, and that it does not engage in a serious argument with postmodernism. Dismissed in a single sentence and a bizarre one at that, to the effect that 'master-narratives are the hegemonic stories told by those in power' (p. Written at the height of what was perceived as an “onslaught of postmodernism” , Evans’ book ‘In Defence of History’ seeks to restate the case for a version of historical writing that is grounded in an empirical understanding of the discipline.

But it is not aware of this as a general problem - only as a specific one which affects historians in a particular way, and one they can deal with easily if they are scrupulous and attentive. I took a doctorate in History long ago, and I still believe with Evans that knowledge (some, not all) about the past is accessible and that there are professional techniques for recovering, arranging,and presenting the past that are both valuable and effective.Kansteiner reminds us that even if the individual historian is a relatively marginal social figure, their work can still reinforce greater institutional and cultural power.