Antoine de Baecque proposes a new historiography of cinema, exploring film as a visual archive of the twentieth century, as well as history's imprint on the cinematic image. Whether portraying events that occurred in the past or stories unfolding before their eyes, certain twentieth-century filmmakers used a particular mise-en-sc?ne to give form to history, becoming in the process historians themselves. Historical events, in turn, irrupted into cinema. This double movement, which de Baecque terms the "cinematographic form of history," disrupts the very material of film, much like historical events disturb the narrative of human progress.

De Baecque defines, locates, and interprets cinematographic forms in seven distinct bodies of cinema: 1950s modern cinema and its conjuring of the morbid trauma of war; French New Wave and its style, which became the negative imprint of the malaise felt by young contemporaries of the Algerian War; post-Communist Russian films, or the "de-modern" works of "catastroika"; contemporary Hollywood films that attach themselves to the master fiction of 9/11; the characteristic "mise en forme" of filmmaker Sacha Guitry, who, in "Si" "Versailles m'?tait cont? (1954), filmed French history from inside its chateau; the work of Jean-Luc Godard, who evoked history through his own museum memory of the twentieth century; and the achievements of Peter Watkins, the British filmmaker who reported on history like a war correspondent. De Baecque's introduction clearly lays out his theoretical framework, a profoundly brilliant conceptualization of the many ways cinema and history relate."

Intellectual historian Michael S. Roth has spent more than two decades exploring the way we make meaning out of the past. This collection features his most influential essays, in which he uses psychoanalysis to build a richer understanding of history, and then takes a more expansive conception of history to decode the cultural construction of memory.

His collection consists of five sections. The first examines the development in nineteenth-century France of professional criteria for diagnosing memory disorders--criteria that signal fundamental changes in the understanding of present and past. The second section explores links between historical consciousness and issues relating to the psyche, including trauma and repression and hypnosis and therapy. Roth next examines the work of postmodern theorists in light of the philosophy of history. Then he considers photography and its capturing of traces of the past, which propose connection while acknowledging otherness. Roth focuses on piety and how it turns us to the past, or how we strive to be faithful to the past without necessarily getting it right or using it well. Roth concludes with essays on the promises and risks of liberal education, calling for a pragmatic and reflexive approach to thinking and learning. Drawing on his vast experiences as a teacher and academic leader, Roth speaks of living with the past without being dominated by it and of remaining open to the possibility of sharing our lives with others.

What are the ethical responsibilities of the historian in an age of mass murder and hyper-reality? Can one be postmodern and still write history? For whom should history be written? The author explores these questions through the figure of the "heterological historian". Realizing the philosophical impossibilities of ever recovering "what really happened", this historian nevertheless acknowledges a moral imperative to speak for those who have been rendered voiceless. The book also weighs the impact of modern archival methods, such as photographs, film and the Internet, which bring with them new constraints on the writing of history and which mandate a different vision of community. Drawing on the works of continental philosophers, historiographers, cognitive scientists and filmmakers, the book creates a framework for the understanding of history and the ethical duties of the historian.

American historical writing has traditionally been one of our primary forms of moral reflection. However, David Harlan argues that in the disillusionment following the 1960s, history abandoned its redemptive potential and took up the methodology of the social sciences. In this provocative new book, Harlan describes the reasons for this turn to objectivity and professionalism, explains why it failed, and examines the emergence of a New Traditionalism in American historical writing.
Part One, "The Legacy of the Sixties," describes the impact of literary theory in the 1970s and beyond, the rise of women's history, the various forms of ideological analysis developed by historians on the left, and the crippling obsession with professionalism in the 1980s. Part Two, "The Renewal of American Historical Writing," focuses on the contributions of John Patrick Diggins, Hayden White, Richard Rorty, Elaine Showalter, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and others. Harlan argues that at the end of the twentieth century American historical writing is perfectly poised to become what it once was: not one of the social sciences in historical costume, but a form of moral reflection that speaks to all Americans.
"[A] wholly admirable work. This book will be talked about for years."--"Library Journal"

As the end of the century approaches, many predict our fin de siecle will mirror the nineteenth-century decline into decadence. But a better model for the 1990s is to be found, according to Joan DeJean, in the culture wars of France in the 1690s--the time of a battle of the books known as the Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns.
DeJean brilliantly reassesses our current culture wars from the perspective of that earlier fin de siecle (the first to think of itself as such), and rereads the seventeenth-century Quarrel from the vantage of our own warring "ancients" and "moderns." In so doing, DeJean shows that a fin de siecle taking place in the shadow of culture wars can be more a source of constructive cultural revolution than of apocalyptic gloom and doom. Just as the first fin de siecle's battle of the books served as the spark that set off the Enlightenment, introducing radically new sexual and social politics that laid the groundwork for modernity, so can our current culture wars result in radical, liberating changes--if we take an active stand against our own "ancients" who seek to stifle such reforms.

Natural Symbols is one of the most important works of modern anthropology. First published over thirty years ago, the work presaged many of the most controversial areas of intellectual debate, from the social significance of the body to religious cosmology.
Written against the backdrop of the student uprisings of the late 1960s, the book took seriously the revolutionary fervour of the times, but instead of seeking to destroy the rituals and symbols that can govern and oppress, Mary Douglas saw instead that if transformation were needed, it could only be made possible through better understanding. Expressed with clarity and dynamism, the passionate analysis which follows remains one of the most insightful and rewarding studies of human behaviour ever written.

"Developing a dialogue between historians and economists is a crucially important task if we are to improve our understanding of the past. Economists have the tools to be able to provide in-depth analysis, the historians have the meat and substance which is necessary, and a blending of the two is terribly important. "Economics and the Historian is a valuable resource for this interchange."--Nobel Laureate Douglass C. North, author of "Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance

"This is a superlative collection of essays for historians who would like to learn about economic history but lack much formal training in mathematics and economic theory. The essays present fundamental concepts of economic analysis in a clear and concise manner, and they show how these concepts can be applied to a variety of historical problems."--Ted W. Margadant, author of "Urban Rivalries in the French Revolution

"This book is must reading for historians who want to know what there is in economics that might be useful for their fields."--Nobel Laureate Robert W. Fogel, author of "Time on the Cross

"Introduces historians and history students to the concepts, models, and logic of economic theory and shows how economic analysis can be applied to solving historical puzzles and problems. Each of the essays illuminates a different subfield of economics with numerous examples drawn from a quarter century of cliometrics. This book will make basic tools of economic historical analysis accessible and at times even entertaining to students (and colleagues) who have little or no background in economics. And it is guaranteed to enliven any course or seminar, as it did mine."--John H. Coatsworth,author of "Central America and the United States

Believe it or not, the 1990s are history. As historians turn to study this period and beyond, they will encounter a historical record that is radically different from what has ever existed before. Old websites, social media, blogs, photographs, and videos are all part of the massive quantities of digital information that technologists, librarians, archivists, and organizations such as the Internet Archive have been collecting for the past three decades. In History in the Age of Abundance? Ian Milligan argues that web-based historical sources and their archives present extraordinary opportunities as well as daunting technical and ethical challenges for historians. Through case studies, he outlines the approaches, methods, tools, and search functions that can help a historian turn web documents into historical sources. He also considers the implications of the size and scale of digital sources, which amount to more information than historians have ever had at their fingertips, and many of which are by and about people who have traditionally been absent from the historical record. Scrutinizing the concept of the web and the mechanics of its archives, Milligan explains how these new media challenge, reshape, and enrich both the historical profession and the historical record. A wake-up call for historians of the twenty-first century, History in the Age of Abundance? is an essential introduction to the way web archives work, what possibilities they open up, what risks they entail, and what the shift to digital information means for historians, their professional training and organization, and society as a whole.

What do Madonna, Confucius, and Jackie Robinson have in common? What does it take to go down in history as a great political leader? Why do revolutions occur, riots break out, and lynch mobs assemble? Which events do people find the most shocking or memorable? This path-breaking work offers the first comprehensive examination of the important personalities and events that have influenced the course of history. It discusses whether people who go down in history are different from the rest of us; whether specific personality traits predispose certain people to become world leaders, movie stars, scientific geniuses, and athletes, while others are relegated to ordinary lives. In exploring the psychology of greatness, this volume sheds light on the characteristics that any of us may share with history-making people. Throughout, the book addresses two broad questions: what sorts of people are responsible for historic events and achievements, and what kinds of events are most likely to be seen as history-making at their time of occurrence. Providing a wealth of examples, the text probes the lives of important figures, from charismatic political and military leaders to famous writers, Nobel Prize winners, child prodigies, and Olympic athletes. The book covers history-making events such as international crises, technological innovations and scientific breakthroughs, popular TV shows, natural disasters, and many more. With unerring insight, Simonton examines the full range of phenomena associated with greatness--everything from genetic inheritance, intuition, aesthetic appreciation, and birth order, to formal education, sexual orientation, aging, IQ, and alcohol and drug abuse. The work embeds psychological topics in the larger contexts of science, art, politics, and history to essentially define a new interdisciplinary field of study: the psychology of history. Written in an engaging style, and offering the first in-depth examination of a topic with universal appeal, GREATNESS will be welcomed by everyone interested in the people and events that have made the world what it is today.

The book analyses the ideological and philosophical basis of Zionism, i.e. how Zionism solved the most important problems of Jews in the last decades of the 19th century: the problem of assimilation, the philosophical principles of national identity, the idea of self-liberation and the conception of the Jewish state. Another problem discussed in this book is how the religious idea of "Return to Zion" became both philosophical and political goals. All considerations are based on the analysis of the source texts of the protagonists and founders of Zionism (Hess, Pinsker, Herzl and Nordau). Zionism is also shown in the perspective of its strength and weakness, as well as its importance for Jewishness in general.

The essays assembled here represent forty years of reflection about the European cultural past by an eminent historian. The volume concentrates on the Renaissance and Reformation, while providing a lens through which to view problems of perennial interest. "A Usable Past" is a book of unusual scope, touching on such topics as political thought and historiography, metaphysical and practical conceptions of order, the relevance of Renaissance humanism to Protestant thought, the secularization of European culture, the contributions of particular professional groups to European civilization, and the teaching of history.The essays in "A Usable Past" are unified by a set of common concerns. William Bouwsma has always resisted the pretensions to science that have shaped much recent historical scholarship and made the work of historians increasingly specialized and inaccessible to lay readers. Following Friedrich Nietzsche, he argues that since history is a kind of public utility, historical research should contribute to the self-understanding of society.

"Professor Hughes offers an earnest warning: 'Unless there is some emotional tie, some elective affinity linking the student to his subject of study, the results will be pedantic and perfunctory.' In other words, it is only a step from the sublime to the meticulous. Those eager to guard against that sad descent will find "History as Art and as Science" a guide, a tonic, and an inspiration. Its short, electrifying essays are so magnificently sane and persuasive they should be required reading for every student who contemplates a major in history."--Geoffrey Bruun, "Saturday Review"

This book marks Kenneth Burke's breakthrough in criticism from the literary and aesthetic into social theory and the philosophy of history. In this volume we find Burke's first entry into what he calls his theory of Dramatism; and, here also is an important section on the nature of ritual.

From Reliable Sources is a lively introduction to historical methodology, an overview of the techniques historians must master in order to reconstruct the past. Its focus on the basics of source criticism, rather than on how to find references or on the process of writing, makes it an invaluable guide for all students of history and for anyone who must extract meaning from written and unwritten sources.

Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier explore the methods employed by historians to establish the reliability of materials; how they choose, authenticate, decode, compare, and, finally, interpret those sources. Illustrating their discussion with examples from the distant past as well as more contemporary events, they pay particular attention to recent information media, such as television, film, and videotape.

The authors do not subscribe to the positivist belief that the historian can attain objective and total knowledge of the past. Instead, they argue that each generation of historians develops its own perspective, and that our understanding of the past is constantly reshaped by the historian and the world he or she inhabits.

A substantially revised and updated edition of Prevenier's Uit goede bron, originally published in Belgium and now in its seventh edition, From Reliable Sources also provides a survey of western historiography and an extensive research bibliography.

"Behemoth, or The Long Parliament" is essential to any reader interested in the historical context of the thought of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). In "De Cive" (1642) and "Leviathan" (1651), the great political philosopher had developed an analytical framework for discussing sedition, rebellion, and the breakdown of authority. "Behemoth," completed around 1668 and not published until after Hobbe's death, represents the systematic application of this framework to the English Civil War.
In his insightful and substantial Introduction, Stephen Holmes examines the major themes and implications of Behemoth in Hobbes's system of thought. Holmes notes that a fresh consideration of Behemoth dispels persistent misreadings of Hobbes, including the idea that man is motivated solely by a desire for self-preservation. Behemoth, which is cast as a series of dialogues between a teacher and his pupil, locates the principal cause of the Civil War less in economic interests than in the stubborn irrationality of key actors. It also shows more vividly than any of Hobbe's other works the importance of religion in his theories of human nature and behavior.

Traumagenic events-episodes that have caused or are likely to cause trauma-color the experiences of K-12 students and the social studies curriculum they encounter in U.S. schools. At the same time that the global COVID-19 pandemic has heightened educators' awareness of collective trauma, the racial reckoning of 2020 has drawn important attention to historical and transgenerational trauma. At a time when social studies educators can simply no longer ignore "difficult" knowledge, instruction that acknowledges trauma in social studies classrooms is essential. Through employing relational pedagogies and foregrounding voices that are too often silenced, the lessons in Hollywood or History? An Inquiry-Based Strategy for Using Film to Acknowledge Trauma in Social Studies engage students in examining the role of traumatic or traumagenic events in social studies curriculum. The 20 Hollywood or History? lessons are organized by themes such as political trauma and war and genocide. Each lesson presents film clips, instructional strategies, and primary and secondary sources targeted to the identified K-12 grade levels. As a collection, they provide ready-to-teach resources that are perfect for teachers who are committed to acknowledging trauma in their social studies instruction.

Teaching with film is not a new approach in the social studies classroom. Different publications, such as Hollywood or History, have bridged the gap with challenges attached to using historical film and engage students through inquiry, not entertainment. To continue with the Hollywood or History strategy, this text uses television shows (sitcoms) to brings issue-centered curriculum to middle and high school classrooms. By exploring issues in specific episodes, students can learn the history behind an issue, relate it to their lives, and develop an informed decision associated with the issue. The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) framework is an integral part to the exploration of issue-centered curriculum. In each chapter, the students will work through the four dimensions and develop critical thinking, reading, and writing skills. My hope is that this text can play a small role in walking practicing teachers through the C3 framework while allowing students to learn about issues that affect society and the communities where they live.

The book is an investigation of the evidence for King Arthur based on the earliest written sources rather than later myths and legends. The evidence is laid out in a chronological order starting from Roman Britain and shows how the legend evolved and at what point concepts such as Camelot, excalibur and Merlin were added. It covers the historical records from the end of Roman Britain using contemporary sources such as they are, from 400-800, including Gallic Chronicles, Gildas and Bede. It details the first written reference to Arthur in the Historia Brittonum c800 and the later Annales Cambriae in the tenth century showing the evolution of the legend in in later Welsh and French stories. The work differs from other books on the subject in not starting from or aiming at a specific person. It compares the possibility of Arthur being purely fictional with an historical figure alongside a list of possible suspects. The evidence is presented and the reader is invited to make up their own mind before a discussion of the Author's own assessment.

In his now classic Voices of Collective Remembering, James V. Wertsch (2002) examines the extent to which certain narrative themes are embedded in the way the collective past is understood and national communities are imagined. In this work, Wertsch coined the term schematic narrative templates to refer to basic plots, such as the triumph over alien forces or quest for freedom, that are recurrently used, setting a national theme for the past, present and future. Whereas specific narratives are about particular events, dates, settings and actors, schematic narrative templates refer to more abstract structures, grounded in the same basic plot, from which multiple specific accounts of the past can be generated. As dominant and naturalised narrative structures, schematic narrative templates are typically used without being noticed, and are thus extremely conservative, impervious to evidence and resistant to change. The concept of schematic narrative templates is much needed today, especially considering the rise of nationalism and extreme-right populism, political movements that tend to tap into national narratives naturalised and accepted by large swathes of society. The present volume comprises empirical and theoretical contributions to the concept of schematic narrative templates by scholars of different disciplines (Historiography, Psychology, Education and Political Science) and from the vantage point of different cultural and social practices of remembering (viz., school history teaching, political discourses, rituals, museums, the use of images, maps, etc.) in different countries. The volume's main goal is to provide a transdisciplinary debate around the concept of schematic narrative templates, focusing on how narratives change as well as perpetuate at times when nationalist discourses seem to be on the rise. This book will be relevant to anyone interested in history, history teaching, nationalism, collective memory and the wider social debate on how to critically reflect on the past.

There is one critical way we honor great tragedies: by never forgetting. Collective remembrance is as old as human society itself, serving as an important source of social cohesion, yet as Jeffrey Andrew Barash shows in this book, it has served novel roles in a modern era otherwise characterized by discontinuity and dislocation. Drawing on recent theoretical explorations of collective memory, he elaborates an important new philosophical basis for it, one that unveils profound limitations to its scope in relation to the historical past. Crucial to Barash's analysis is a look at the radical transformations that symbolic configurations of collective memory have undergone with the rise of new technologies of mass communication. He provocatively demonstrates how such technologies' capacity to simulate direct experience-especially via the image-actually makes more palpable collective memory's limitations and the opacity of the historical past, which always lies beyond the reach of living memory. Thwarting skepticism, however, he eventually looks to literature-specifically writers such as Walter Scott, Marcel Proust, and W. G. Sebald-to uncover subtle nuances of temporality that might offer inconspicuous emblems of a past historical reality.

In the face of conflict and despair, we often console ourselves by saying that history will be the judge. Today's oppressors may escape being held responsible for their crimes, but the future will condemn them. Those who stand up for progressive values are on the right side of history. As ideas once condemned to the dustbin of history-white supremacy, hypernationalism, even fascism-return to the world, threatening democratic institutions and values, can we still hold out hope that history will render its verdict? Joan Wallach Scott critically examines the belief that history will redeem us, revealing the implicit politics of appeals to the judgment of history. She argues that the notion of a linear, ever-improving direction of history hides the persistence of power structures and hinders the pursuit of alternative futures. This vision of necessary progress perpetuates the assumption that the nation-state is the culmination of history and the ultimate source for rectifying injustice. Scott considers the Nuremberg Tribunal and South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which claimed to carry out history's judgment on Nazism and apartheid, and contrasts them with the movement for reparations for slavery in the United States. Advocates for reparations call into question a national history that has long ignored enslavement and its racist legacies. Only by this kind of critical questioning of the place of the nation-state as the final source of history's judgment, this book shows, can we open up room for radically different conceptions of justice.