SOURCE: Handlin, Oscar. Review of The New History and the Old, by Gertrude Himmelfarb. Academic Questions 1, no. 4 (fall 1988): 90-1.

In the following review, Handlin recommends The New History and the Old to a general as well as an academic readership. Handlin applauds Himmelfarb's confrontation with serious problems in the field of history, but points out several flaws in her arguments.

This volume [The New History and the Old] assembles ten essays, all save one previously published, but all edited and rewritten. A brief, pungent introduction supplies a theme that holds them together. The author's critical acumen, wide learning, and flashes of wit shine through these pages, which deserve a general as well as an academic audience.

Two essays stand apart, dealing as they do with the philosophy rather than the practice of history. The effort to integrate an analysis of the idea of progress with the work of...