Hello Dr Reames! Do you have recommendations for books about historiography? I really need to understand what it is and how it works
So, the intro book I use in my own undergrad methodology class is this one:
Gaddis, J. L. (2002) The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
He's not an ancient historian, but that doesn't really matter, except that some of the issues unique to ancient history won't be addressed. Still, it's a very good introduction for a reasonable price. You can almost certainly find one used. For something specific to the ancient world, see below.
I have one caveat, and it's kinda a big one. He doesn't much like the social sciences, and repeatedly questions their validity. That bothers me, and I wonder why he's so negative about them? Perhaps he's run into one-too-many historians overusing (or flat misusing) social science tools like a shiny new toy. ;-)
But social science tools are perfectly fine, as long as properly employed. He does point out some of the (very real) issues with them when applied to history...but they're hardly the kiss of death.
For ancient history SPECIFICALLY, I recommend Stan Burstein's recent book on the topic:
Burstein, S.M. (2022) The Essential Greek Historians. Hackett (for Cambridge).
I particularly like it because he doesn't limit himself to "the usual suspects" (Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius). They're there, but he moves on and addresses Greek writers well into Roman Imperial times, and uses a variety of sources, including some epigraphic (The Parian Marble, for instance).
This keeps his book from falling into the same problems as Finley's famous The Portable Greek Historians, which did stick to the Usual Suspects (see above). And it's shorter, too!
So there ya go, one "general" book on historiography, and one aimed specifically at ancient history by a towering scholar in the field (and a very nice guy, btw, who's even shorter than me!).