Ginzburg, Anderson, and the anomalies

Abstract

This essay offers the reader a journey – as a book review - to one of the lastest books of Carlo Ginzburg, Thread and traces. This book inspired a sharp comment by Perry Anderson, an old polemicist. Some important discussions trated in the book and in the article, -that can also be tracked in previous letters and essays from both authors- discuss fundamental matters of historical discipline, from the possibility of historical knowledge, the truth, the relation betwen proof and evidence, the microhistorical method, the links between history and literature, to the role of the historian.