This book asks how the existence of photographs has shaped our sense of history and therefore shaped historical methods and enquiry.

What is it to practice history in an age in which photographs exist? What is the impact of photographs on the core historiographical practices which define the discipline and shape its enquiry and methods? In Photographs and the Practice of History, Elizabeth Edwards proposes a new approach to historical thinking which explores these questions and redefines the practices at the heart of this discipline. Structured around key concepts in historical methodology which are recognisable to all undergraduates, the book shows that from the mid-19th century onward, photographs have influenced historical enquiry. Exposure to these mass-distributed cultural artefacts is enough to change our historical frameworks even when research is textually-based. Conceptualised as a series of ‘sensibilities’ rather than a methodology as such, it is intended as a companion to 'how to' approaches to visual research and visual sources. Photographs and the Practice of History not only builds on existing literature by leading scholars: it also offers a highly original approach to historiographical thinking that gives readers a foundation on which to build their own historical practices.

"The presence of photographs disrupts historical practice, and creates opportunities to re-think our relationship with the past. This is the argument Edwards, one of the world’s leading photo historians, makes in this immensely powerful, dazzlingly learned, and eminently readable book. A must-read for every student of history!" - Maiken Umbach, Professor of Modern History, University of Nottingham, UK

"This is a provocative exploration of the subtle synergies between photographs and historical sensibility, written by a major historian of photography. Above all, it is a plea to think afresh about how photographs have radically reshaped our understandings of time, space and history in irreversible ways." - Paul Betts, Professor of Modern European History, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, UK

"Through photographs, Edwards shoulders a multiplicity of conceptual and methodological threads–time, scale, presence, context, materiality–that all historians should approach with a new level of consciousness in their practice. Here, photographs are the alibi to address the real silences of history, opening floodgates of potentiality for its future practice." - Patricia Hayes, DSI/NRF SARChI Chair in Visual History & Theory, University of the Western Cape, South Africa

"Photographs and the Practice of History is a profound reflection on how photographs have defined our relationship to the past and its implications in the present, from the foremost scholar in the field. Deftly written and alive with questions on the nature of history itself, this is a book every historian, and anyone who works with photographs, should read." - Christina Riggs, Professor of the History of Visual Culture, Durham University, UK