Must We Divide History Into Periods?

The value of this work lies in its consideration of Western early modern history and its reflection on how we perceive and try to control time. It is a memoir of intellectual landscape by a man who lived with his subject for half a century. Le Goff evokes how the naming of a new period entails the rejection of what precedes; when we decide this was the Renaissance, we cast off a thing called the Middle Ages. Le Goff encourages us to avoid such partitions and appreciate time's continuum. -- Andrea Tarnowski, Dartmouth College Time occupied Jacques Le Goff throughout his long and immensely fruitful career. The qualities of time - liturgical time, market time, peasant time - intrigued him, as did the ways it has been divided, measured, and represented. In Must We Divide History into Periods? Le Goff delights his readers with the suggestion that the Renaissance was but one of a series of creative episodes within Europe's long 'Middle Ages', an epoch whose end is best found in the eighteenth century. -- Miri Rubin, Queen Mary University of London Jacques Le Goff was one of the truly great historians of our time, and his final reflections on the nature and responsibilities of our craft are lucid, profound, and humane. -- R. I. Moore, Newcastle University Acknowledging both the arbitrary nature of historical periodization and its necessity, Le Goff argued until his death for an appreciation of the fundamental unity of what is normally divided into the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This final formulation of his arguments will be useful to generations to come who seek to understand the paradox of continuity and change in European history. -- Patrick J. Geary, Institute for Advanced Study