Rigney opens this fascinating, persuasive study by defining the features of history writing as 'compromise, failure, provisionality, and dissatisfaction.'... Rigney's dense and illuminating footnotes and her extensive bibliography testify to the research she undertook in literary and historical theory and in contemporaneous and contemporary criticism.
"Rigney opens this fascinating, persuasive study by defining the features of history writing as 'compromise, failure, provisionality, and dissatisfaction.'. . . Rigney's dense and illuminating footnotes and her extensive bibliography testify to the research she undertook in literary and historical theory and in contemporaneous and contemporary criticism."Choice, February 2002,Vol. 39, No. 6
"Rigney's principle of selection is novel, and conscientiously pursued; the questions is excludes are also questions it has made newly visible."Ted Underwood, Colby College, European Romantic Review, 14:3, Sept. 2003.
"On the whole, Rigney's is an inciting book, stronger on the historical than on the theoretical side, but rich in knowledge and information, useful in the range of topics it approaches, and generally judicious in its ideas."Virgil Nemoianu, Catholic University of America, Modern Language Quarterly 64:3, September 2003
"As a study of a kind of cultural history focused on the 'experience' of the past and 'experience' is a recurrent term hereRigney's book is a work of subtle analysis and broad awareness."Lionel Gossman, Princeton University, American Historical Review, April 2003
"Imperfect Histories offers the best discussion to date of the relation of history and literature. It is also a splended book on the Romantic sense of the past and its powerful affinities to current concerns. With profound scholarship and enviable style, Ann Rigney has addressed the crucial issues of contemporary historical thought. This book will be an invaluable contribution to the field."Hans Kellner, University of Texas, Arlington