What is history? And why do people value it? Basing his inquiry on fieldwork near Guadalajara in west Mexico, anthropologist Trevor Stack focuses on one reason for which people commonly value history-knowing history is said to make for better citizens, which helps to explain why history is taught at schools worldwide and history questions are included in citizenship tests. Stack combines his Mexican fieldwork with his personal experience of history in Scottish schools and at Oxford University to try to pinpoint what exactly it is that makes people who know history seem like better citizens....

Religious-secular distinctions have been crucial to the way in which modern governments have rationalised their governance and marked out their sovereignty - as crucial as the territorial boundaries that they have drawn around nations. The authors of this volume provide a multi-dimensional picture of how the category of religion has served the ends of modern government. They draw on perspectives from history, anthropology, moral philosophy, theology and religious studies, as well as empirical analysis of India, Japan, Mexico, the United States, Israel-Palestine, France and the United...