Throughout the text Bloch questions some of the most basic assumptions that both historians and educated readers often make about the past - periods, social systems, the significance of centuries (twelfth century, nineteenth century history) historical categories such as serfs and servitude and many other fascinating assumptions that are shattered by Bloch’s careful dissection of the examples he considers. It includes many examples from Bloch’s own research as a medieval historian, and it illustrates the ways in which he interrogates and contextualizes these “tracks” of medieval historical life. Instead, it is an extended reflection by Marc Bloch about his own thought processes as a creative, imaginative historical researcher.
But it is certainly not organized as a treatise on methods. It is not a finished manuscript, as Lucien Febvre explains in a preface to the English edition. In fact, the suggestion is partly the result of an unfortunate choice by the translator the French title Apologie pour l’histoire, ou Métier d’historien might with equal justice be translated as “A discourse on history: The historian’s calling”. The English title suggests it is a handbook of sorts on the art and practice of historical research. Marc Bloch’s Historian’s Craft: Reflections on the Nature and Uses of History and the Techniques and Methods of Those Who Write It is challenging to read, in part because it is not exactly what it seems to be.
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