Biography and historiography: Mutual evidentiary and interdisciplinary considerations

Journal of Interdisciplinary History

Volumn 40, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 305-324

  Rotberg, Robert I ^a  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 73549107422     PISSN: 00221953     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/jinh.2010.40.3.305     Document Type: Article

References (15)

1. Lawrence Stone, "The Revival of Narrative: Reflections on an Old History," Past & Present, 85 (1979), 4-23.
2. Hayden V. White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore, 1987), 40.
3. Richard T. Vann, "The Reception of Hayden White," History & Theory, XXXVII (1998), 148. For a discussion of my differences with them, please see below.
4. Rotberg (with Miles F. Shore), The Founder: Cecil Rhodes and the Pursuit of Power (New York, 1988).
5. Idem, A Leadership for Peace: How Edwin Ginn Tried to Change the World (Stanford, 2007).
6. Idem, "Psychological Stress and the Question of Identity: Chilembwe's Revolt Reconsidered," in idem and Ali A. Mazrui (eds.), Protest and Power in Black Africa (New York, 1970), 337-369.
7. Chilembwe also featured in a part of idem, The Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa (Cambridge, Mass., 1965).
8. Idem, Black Heart: Gore-Browne and the Politics of Multiracial Zambia (Berkeley, 1978).
9. Idem, Joseph Thomson and the Exploration of Africa (New York, 1971).
10. Geoffrey R. Elton, The Practice of History (London, 1967), 169.
11. Timothy C.W. Blanning and David Cannadine (eds.) History and Biography: Essays in Honour of Derek Beales (Cambridge, 1996), 1.
12. Roger Lockyer, "Writing Historical Biography," History Today, XXXIV (November, 1984), 46.
13. In 1961, I discovered an unknown manuscript by George Simeon Mwase in the Malawi archives. In it, Mwase described his own life and explained Chilembwe's rebellion. When it was published as Strike a Blow and Die: A Narrative of Race Relations in Colonial Africa (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), it elevated Mwase from the ranks of an unknown player in to an important expositor of Malawi's foremost anticolonial struggle.
14. Gordon Wood, The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History (New York, 2008), 104.
15. Susan Ware, Still Missing: Amelia Earhart and the Search for Modern Feminism (New York, 1993).