  Analysis has always been at the heart of philosophical method, but it has been understood and practised in many different ways. Perhaps, in its broadest sense, it might be defined as a process of isolating or  working back to what is more fundamental by means of which something, initially taken as given, can be explained or reconstructed. The  explanation or reconstruction is often then exhibited in a  corresponding process of synthesis. This allows great variation in  specific method, however. The aim may be to get back to basics, but  there may be all sorts of ways of doing this, each of which might be  called ‘analysis’. The dominance of  ‘analytic’ philosophy in the English-speaking world, and  increasingly now in the rest of the world, might suggest that a  consensus has formed concerning the role and importance of analysis.  This assumes, though, that there is agreement on what  ‘analysis’ means, and this is far from clear. On the  other hand, Wittgenstein's later critique of analysis in the  early (logical atomist) period of analytic philosophy, and  Quine's attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction, for  example, have led some to claim that we are now in a  ‘post-analytic’ age. Such criticisms, however, are only  directed at particular conceptions of analysis. If we look at the  history of philosophy, and even if we just look at the history of  analytic philosophy, we find a rich and extensive repertoire of  conceptions of analysis which philosophers have continually drawn  upon and reconfigured in different ways. Analytic philosophy is alive and well precisely because of the range of conceptions of analysis  that it involves. It may have fragmented into various interlocking  subtraditions, but those subtraditions are held together by both  their shared history and their methodological interconnections. It is the aim of this article to indicate something of the range of  conceptions of analysis in the history of philosophy and their  interconnections, and to provide a bibliographical resource for those wishing to explore analytic methodologies and the philosophical  issues that they raise.