. Medieval French historical writing can be divided into two periods. In the 6th through 11th centuries, histories were produced at centers of literacy for various reasons: to continue old works, to imitate historical exemplars, to please a patron, or...

The English word history, as well as the French histoire and the Italian storia, stems from the Greek historia, which was used first to refer to a general inquiry into things and only later to refer to history as it is now understood. Germans speak of...

Historiography studies the processes by which historical knowledge is obtained and transmitted. Broadly speaking, historiography examines the writing of history and the use of historical methods, drawing upon such elements such as authorship, sourcing,...

Companion to Historiography. Edited by Michael Bentley. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. xvii + 997 pages. Though little more than six pages long-- disproportionately brief, one might argue in a book of this great length--the editor's general introduction to "the project...

One of the reasons I think I'm a lousy film critic is that I often need to see a film three or four times before I know what I actually think of it. It's not that I don't react, it's that I don't know...

THE BLACK SWAN: THE IMPACT OF THE HIGHLY IMPROBABLEBy Nassim Nicholas Taleb Random House, 366 pages, $26.95 Nassim Taleb knows the good life: weekends in Venice, excellent wine, helicopter-flying lessons and a host of other luxuries that are easy to afford if, like him, you’re...

O.K., here’s a quick Choose Your Own Adventure to test your political savvy. You’re the President of the United States, it’s September, and over in Iraq, various gangs of thugs are driving around murdering and terrorizing a certain community, which has, naturally, created some militia...