Roger Chartier engages several of the most influential writers of cultural history whose works have spread beyond academic audiences to become part of a contemporary cultural argument. Challenging the assertion that history is no more a "fiction-making operation", he examines the relationships between history and fiction, and proposes new foundations for establishing history as a specific kind of knowledge. Michel de Certeau's description of Michel Foucault's writing as "on the edge of the cliff" provides Chartier with an image he finds appropriate not only for Foucault but for many other recent historians - including de Certeau. Exploring the relationships between discursive practices and nondiscursive practices, this work examines the heterology of de Certeau; pursues the "chimera of origin" and the causes of the French Revolution in Foucault's work; and raises four questions for the metahistory of Hayden White. The book follows the work of Louis Marin into the distinctions between interpreting a painting and interpreting a text. Three essays treat the historical sociology of Norbert Elias and his work on power and civility.
Throughout, Chartier keeps his focus on historians who have stressed the relations between the products of discourse and social practices.