[.ca] History and Historians: A Historiographical Introduction (ISBN 0132286785)

Short and to the Point:
Mark Gilderhus surveys the important topics and works of historiography. The book serves as a great introduction to the pursuit of history. I wish I had this book to refer to when I couldn't explain why I was chasing an M.A. in History (even my professor couldn't explain what we were doing their, but at least I had Marc Bloch to guide me in just doing it).

Concise and Informative:
An excellent book introducing the origins of historical thought, the changing ideas and methods of history, and the challenges of history in the postmodern era. Also, the introduction provides a great discussion on the importance of studying history. A very understandable and readable book, only 135 pages. I recommend it highly for anyone interested in studying historical philosophy.

A lot of history in a few pages:
This book describes itself as a brief survey of the philosophy of history intended for novice historians and beginning students of history. It is brief, only 140 pages including the index, but it packs a lot of information. It begins with an overview of our Western heritage, starting with the Hebrew notion of a linear history and the Greek notion of a critical rationalism in the study of history. Then it carries us through to modern history, stopping along the way to describe the positions of such thinkers as Augustine, Voltaire, Hume, Kant, Hegel, and Marx, along with a host of lesser well-known theorists. It distinguishes between the speculative and analytical approaches to the study of history, providing a chapter for each approach. It moves into the more modern debate between the positivist and idealist approaches and ends with the current debate between the possibility of objectivity and accusations of subjectivity by postmodernist thinkers. It covers enough of each approach to give the novice a basic understanding of the issues involved and a knowledge of which historians took what side. It is a very good book that serves well the purpose it was set to serve.