This broad survey introduces readers to the major themes, figures, traditions and theories in Western historical thought, tracing its evolution from biblical times to the present.

• Surveys the evolution of historical thought in the Western World from biblical times to the present day.
  
• Provides students with the background to contemporary historical debates and approaches.
  
• Serves as a useful reference for researchers and teachers.
  
• Includes chapters by 24 leading historians.

Lloyd Kramer is Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His previous publications include Threshold of a New World: Intellectuals and the Exile Experience in Paris, 1830-1848 (1988), Lafayette in Two Worlds: Public Cultures and Personal Identities in an Age of Revolutions (1996), and Nationalism: Political Cultures in Europe and America, 1775-1865 (1998).

Sarah Maza is Jane Long Professor of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She is the author of Servants and Masters in Eighteenth-century France (1983) and Private Lives and Public Affairs: The Causes Célèbres of Pre-Revolutionary France (1993).