一個從美國回台的美國史博士

今天在書林看到一本很有趣的書，看起來應該算是歷史學研究的入門書，感覺上蠻適合當史學導論的教科書的。裡面有提到各種領域的史學，也介紹了各種傳統的史學模式，包括傳統的史學，像啟蒙史學、輝格史觀等等，也有介紹各種比較新式的史學，例如年鑑、文化史等等。同時也有一章討論史學的"方法"，一章討論史學的各種理論和概念，也有教學生如何更有效地閱讀各種文本，像是專題論文、教科書、原始史料、二手研究等等。也討論了如何在各種環境中學習，演講課、專題討論課、團隊報告、圖書館、資料庫、網路等等。還有一章教我們怎麼寫Essay，一章教我們怎麼寫學位論文，還有一章教怎麼考試。看到這本書有點相見恨晚的感覺，不知道甚麼時候我們也可以有一本這樣多元的入門書，這樣就可以少走很多冤枉路了。 最近有點覺得自己真的是太遜太不足了，就不禁覺得如果早點看到這本書那可能就會有所不同了。特別是研讀各種材料的那個部份，還有教怎麼做筆記呢！

Quentin Skinner is one of the pivots of the “Cambridge School” in intellectual history. Like other members of Cambridge School, such as J.G.A. Pocock and John Dunn, besides his marvelous research achievements on many topics in the history of political thoughts, he also made a profound contribution to the developments of the methodology of the history of political thoughts. The reason that I chose to research on this topic was that, since I entered the department of history, I had shown special interests on intellectual history, and meanwhile I had kept considering on the meaning of intellectual history. There were people believing the existence of absolute value and truth. They studied history to search for the ultimate truth. On the other side, there were relativists who researched the intellectual history. For them, what was the significance of the study of intellectual history? If there were no absolute value, why we study the predecessors’ experiences? What should we expect to lear...