Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method

Rating:
Summary: History vs. Science
Review: I read this book after reading The Cheese and the Worms and found only one essay of interest, the one of the title. There, Ginzburg argues that history cannot be studied profitably from the scientific (meaning Galilean, or mathematical physics) standpoint, there is inadequate empirical basis for it. Rather, the methods of art history and Sherlock Holmes (clues in small exceptional things, like a deformed fingernail) provide better results. I think he may have something here. For the opposite viewpoint, which in my opinion is wrong, see Buchannan's Ubiquity.