Nothing But History: Reconstruction and Extremity after Metaphysics

In this reissue of a highly praised intellectual history, which traces historical and anti-historical themes from Nietzsche, Croce, and Heidegger to Gadamer, Foucault, Derrida, and Rorty, David Roberts pinpoints tendencies toward overreaction in the postmodern turn, and shows how historians can deepen their self understanding and play a more central role in a postmodern culture. His way of rethinking such contested categories as presentism and relativism, master narratives and "others," enables us better to understand the cultural place of historical inquiry. Includeds a new preface that responds to critics and places the work within the changing framework of debate over postmodernism and history.