lo releí para la universidad esta vez con el contexto de la realidad de bloch y lo disfruté ( y entendí) mucho más. qué carta de amor más grande a tu oficio abocarse a la tarea de defenderlo ante la sociedad en tus últimos momentos.

I hated this book when I was first assigned to read it in graduate school, and I still hate it today. It is poorly written, meandering nonsense masquerading as deep thoughts. Don’t waste your time. Avoid at all costs.

This book offers a reflection on some fundamental aspects of the historical profession, with valuable insights. But it is rather unsystematic, and clearly unfinished. Especially his assertion that sources, or traces as he calls them, are more useful as indirect witnesses, namely to extract things out of them there that were not intended by the witness, is a bit too extreme. This is true in the field of mental history (histoire des mentalités), but it neglects a very wide domain of the historical métier.

Occasionally there was a surprising insight, as for example the statement that there is only a gradual difference in the investigation of the far past and that of the recent past, because also the present is sometimes only very imperfectly knowledgeable, through lack of testimonials and communication flaws, so that even a reconstruction of very recent facts can only be but imperfect.

Bloch defends in this booklet the these that history is a science, albeit with its own methodology and with the limited expectations that you may impose on all human sciences. A somewhat ambiguous position this is, in the then (mid-20th century) still furious discussion with positivism. The booklet contains many valuable insights, but the meandering style makes the reading (in French) not easy; in defense of Bloch: he wrote this in captivity in 1942-43, without access to a library. To reread.

Needs a good chunk of time to read, as doesn't work well as a boom to dip into.

Thought-provoking and truly interesting arguments.

Marc Bloch's "The Historian's Craft" is a necessary read for anyone even considering becoming a historian. It details in a thoughtful and comprehensive way the limitations and difficulties of bridging that gap between the dead and the living.

A truly masterful work by an experienced and equally amazing author, "The Historian's Craft" is at once educational and a reflection on historiography.