Two distinguished historians, one an advocate of the new scientific or "cliometric" history and the other a traditional historian, debate the validity of their respective methods of studying the past. While they differ sharply on many issues, in the end they agree that history is a vigorous, evolving discipline able to absorb the best of both scientific and humanistic thought.
"Fogel asserts persuasively that cliometrics is best characterized by the explicit use of social science theory, and only secondly by its use of quantification.... Elton elegantly defends the traditional virtues of...

Though the first edition of this book (1960) rapidly established itself as a sound collection of source material and a comprehensive analysis of the government of England in the sixteenth century, the astonishing amount of work done, by many hands including the author's, in the last twenty years has rendered a revision very necessary. The scope of these changes is indicated by the fact that in the list of books cited some 180 make a first appearance while some 70 have been discarded. In the upshot, no single section has remained unaltered and several (especially on the Church, on Parliament...

This is a comprehensive account of the parliament of early modern England.

This study attempts to discover the fate of reforming programmes when efforts were made to translate them into reality.

This is G.R. Elton's classic account of the Reformation, revealing the issues and preoccupations which seemed central to the age and portraying its leading figures with vigour and realism.

The new edition of G. R. Elton's classic work is a wide-ranging, succinct and practical introduction for all students and general readers of history. It makes a major contribution to the question "what is history?."