This is the worst book I've read in a long while, and feel compelled to say so. It's supposed to be introductory for students and teachers, but it's obtuse and unclear, even for me. To give you an idea, I find reading Aristotle easier to read than this, and Aristotle was talking about issues of much higher density and complexity than basic historiographical theory. The style, sentence structure, and vocabulary just 'obfuscate' things, which is unfortunately a pattern among the theorists Jenkins admires (a pity, because what they have to say is important). Further, if you're a beginner historian, this book is useless because the author makes sweeping statements about the state of the discipline that are false or misleading, and you won't know any better. If you're a more experienced historian, it's very superficial. I don't know who this book is really for.
My main problem with the book is it’s the blatant arrogance, even poor form. If postmodernism sees history and communication as a big rhetorical game, with no real, objective point of reference to the truth, Jenkins plays a rhetorical game on over-drive. I can't believe so many harsh statements are made on Carr and Elton. I'm not a fan of Carr (or Elton) myself, but Carr especially doesn't deserve the misrepresentation and belittling treatment he gets. Jenkins uses adverbs like 'clearly' or 'obviously' to describe how Carr and Elton are wrong here or there, yet does not give nearly enough argumentation or documentation to back up such strong language of rebuttal; it's just blank assertions. To give another example, he quotes Carr then says, 'Of course none of this is to the point' which was not true at all of the quote, and did not proceed to show why. The chapters on Carr and Elton are a waste of time - he misrepresents and blasts them; you're much better off reading them on your own - their books are short. I don't know how such drivel was even printed.
The Rorty chapter was the only halfway redeeming quality, and I will look into him further; the chapter on White only confirmed to me that White's arguments are a waste of time, except for his taxonomy.
This is the only book I've read of Jenkins; maybe his others are better, and I do agree in some aspect of his historiography, but this book really isn't worth it. A better treatment to the challenges and changes we must make with postmodernism is Telling the Truth About History, by Appleby et al.