Providing a critical introduction to historical studies, this text examines the key issues, the historians and philosophers, and the concepts, ideas and theories which have prompted the rethinking of history which has been gathering momentum in the 1990s. Key concepts for the new history are examined through the ideas of leading historians and philosophers since the 18th century such as Kant, Nietzsche, Croce, Collingwood, White, Foucault and Derrida including: class; empiricism; hermeneutics; inference; metanarrative; relativism; and teleology. With an introduction setting out the state of the discipline of history in 1999, and alphabetical entries on the key ideas, issues and concepts, the book explores the challenges that history faces in the late 20th century.