With my first year in a PhD program coming to an end, my advisor and I have determined that I need to do some major catching up on theory over the summer. She gave me a partial list of her favorites and what she thinks I should know, but I'm looking to fill in some of the blanks. I'm hoping you guys can help me out!
Here's my list so far:
In historiography I have:
I've checked the book lists for more historiography ones - these were the two most important my advisor recommended, but I'm open to suggestions of really important books.
I'm trying to figure out in which of Bourdeau's books he covers habitas. I found it at one point and can't seem to find it again. Does anyone know which that is?
I'd also like to read up on Wallerstein's version of world-system's theory, but if I'm only going to read one of his books, which one would be best? There are seven with "World Systems" in the title.
Thanks for your help!
For an introduction to Foucault's thought, I'd actually recommend Power/Knowledge. It's a good overview of his whole project if you can't plough through Archaeology of Knowledge.
Other possibilities:
Michael Mann's Sources of Social Power (but sooo long)
Hobsbawm and Ranger's anthology on Invented Traditions
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities
Halbwachs on collective memory (I love the Assmanns' work on this as well, but it might not be within your scope)
Stuart Elden is doing interesting work on the history of territory (he published several papers recently) - it extends upon some of the spatiotemporal themes Foucault discusses in Power/Knowledge.
de Certeau's The Practice of Everyday Life is relevant to social history work, and he talks about Bourdieu's habitus there too.
On that note, maybe Clifford Geertz on thick description? I'm not familiar with the history equivalent of the cultural turn though, sorry.
Historiography - I found Frank Ankersmit/ Hans Kellner good. Chakrabarty has an article on Four Theses on History that brings the anthropocene into history. Barthes' perspective on the sign/ signified could be relevant as well.
Gadamer's Truth and Method is one of my favourites and is important for both philosophy and historiography. Not exactly the easiest read but it is very rewarding once you put the effort in. It would fit quite nicely within that list.
Agree or disagree with him, Jim Scott is important: Seeing Like a State and perhaps also Weapons of the Weak. Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men (now reissued) and perhaps Dominance by Design are good meditations on technology and ideology, and each considers Japan and African colonialism; I find the social/cultural approach to be more helpful than Headrick's tendency to prioritize instrumentality in technology. Ben Anderson, as /u/argent-skies points out, is crucial. I'd add Walter Mignolo, The Darker Side of the Renaissance, for literacy and expansion. There are some more specific books on Africa (Mamdani, Crawford Young, Herbst come to mind) but those may not fall into the generalist's space.
(Oh yeah, and Cohn's Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge, can't forget that.)
[edit: typing is hard, vowels all up in each other's spaces]