Kategoria BISAC: History >> Historiography

Hayden White probes the notion of authority in art and literature and examines the problems of meaning--its production, distribution, and consumption--in different historical epochs. In the end, he suggests, the only meaning that history can have is the kind that a narrative imagination gives to it. The secret of the process by which consciousness invests history with meaning resides in -the content of the form, - in the way our narrative capacities transform the present into a fulfillment of a past from which we would wish to have descended.

Postmodernism has challenged historians to look at historical texts in a new way and to be skeptical of the claim that one can confidently retrieve -fact- from historical writings. In The Past as Text historian Gabrielle M. Spiegel sets out to read medieval histories and chronicles in light of the critical-theoretical problems raised by postmodernism. At the same time she urges a method of analysis that enables the reader to recognize these texts simultaneously as artifice and as works deeply embedded in a historically determinate, knowable social world. Beginning with a theoretical...

In Objectivity Is Not Neutrality, Thomas L. Haskell argues for a moderate historicism that acknowledges the force of perspective and reaffirms the pluralistic practices of a liberal democratic society--even while upholding time-honored distinctions between fact and fiction, scholarship and propaganda, right and might. Haskell addresses questions that will interest philosophers and literary theorists no less than historians, exploring topics ranging from the productivity of slave labor to the cultural concomitants of capitalism, from John Stuart Mill's youthful -mental crisis- to...

In History Out of Joint, Sande Cohen considers the ways in which historical narratives summon up a past and lay down a future in the ever-multiplying intellectual debates of contemporary public culture. As competing factions advance contradictory principles to validate or discredit their preferred accounts of the past and the present, Cohen argues that the fundamental question of how these principles themselves should be addressed--of what truly constitutes the use or abuse of history--has been pushed aside. Taking Nietzsche's idea of a simultaneous production and -anti-production-...

This collection of selected excerpts focuses on The Canadian Historical Review's contribution to the study of Canadian history from the journal's founding in 1920 to the present. Using the CHR's own interconnected objectives as a benchmark - the promotion of high standards of historical research and writing in Canada, and the fostering of the study of Canadian history - Marlene Shore analyses the varying degrees of success the journals had in meeting its those goals. Her introductory essay shows how the CHR was shaped not only by its own editorial policies, but by international currents...

This collection of selected excerpts focuses on The Canadian Historical Review's contribution to the study of Canadian history from the journal's founding in 1920 to the present. Using the CHR's own interconnected objectives as a benchmark - the promotion of high standards of historical research and writing in Canada, and the fostering of the study of Canadian history - Marlene Shore analyses the varying degrees of success the journals had in meeting its those goals. Her introductory essay shows how the CHR was shaped not only by its own editorial policies, but by international currents...

In this study Dominick LaCapra addresses the ongoing concern with the application of theory - namely that of literary studies and linguistics - to contemporary historical research and analysis. History and Reading is an attempt to address the concerns of those scholars who either resist theoretical discussions or disavow the use of interdisciplinary study.

LaCapra begins with an extensive discussion of the problem of reading and interpretation as it relates to the understanding of history. The focus then moves to two classic texts that serve as case studies: Alexis de...

By nature, human beings seek to make sense of their past. Paradoxically, true historical explanation is ultimately impossible. Historians never have complete evidence from the past, nor is their methodology rigorous enough to prove causal links. Although it cannot be proven that 'A caused B, ' by redefining the agenda of historical discourse, scholars can locate events in time and place history once again at the heart of intellectual activity.

In Past Futures, Ged Martin advocates examining the decisions that people take, most of which are not the result of a 'process, ' but...

By nature, human beings seek to make sense of their past. Paradoxically, true historical explanation is ultimately impossible. Historians never have complete evidence from the past, nor is their methodology rigorous enough to prove causal links. Although it cannot be proven that 'A caused B, ' by redefining the agenda of historical discourse, scholars can locate events in time and place history once again at the heart of intellectual activity.

In Past Futures, Ged Martin advocates examining the decisions that people take, most of which are not the result of a 'process, ' but...