Drawing examples from some of the classic works in the discipline, Miles Fairburn examines the nature, varieties, schools and evolution of social history. Intended for advanced students and practising social historians who see social history as a problem solving discipline, the methodological problems examined include the absence of social categories, fragmenting evidence, the appraisal of rival explanations, the use of socially constructed evidence to substantiate claims about realities, how to avoid presentism and when its practice is justifiable, how to distinguish important causes and how to tell similarities from differences.

What good is history to cultural studies? Meaghan Morris looks at struggles over "history" in social settings created by capitalism: in tourist landscapes and in television time. The materials of her analysis are motels, shopping malls, beaches, and local politics. She focuses on history and cultural heritage as issues of controversy for white working-class and poor suburban communities, as well as for urban cultural elites.

At once a historical essay and a self-conscious meditation on the writing of history, The Foundation of Rome takes as its starting point a series of accounts of Rome's origins offered over the course of centuries. Alexandre Grandazzi places these accounts in their contemporary contexts and shows how the growing sophistication in methodology gradually changed the accepted views of the city's origins. He looks, for example, at the hypercritical philology of the nineteenth century which cast aside everything that could not be verified. He then explains how the increase in archaeological discoveries and changing archaeological techniques influenced the story of Rome's birth.Grandazzi produces a depiction of Rome's origins that is both up-to-date and provocative. His use of scientific parallels in describing changes in the ways texts were analyzed and his broad familiarity with comparative material make his synthesis particularly illuminating, and he writes with clarity, verve, and wit.

What legitimate form can history take when faced by the severe challenges issued in recent years by literary, rhetorical, multiculturalist, and feminist theories? That is the question considered in this long-awaited and pathbreaking book. Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., addresses the essential practical concern of contemporary historians; he offers a way actually to go about reading and writing histories in light of the many contesting theories.

Berkhofer ranges through a vast archive of recent writings by a broad range of authors. He explicates the opposing paradigms and their corresponding dilemmas by presenting in dialogue form the positions of modernists and postmodernists, formalists and deconstructionists, textualists and contextualists. Poststructuralism, the New Historicism, the New Anthropology, the New Philosophy of History--these and many other approaches are illuminated in new ways in these comprehensive, interdisciplinary explorations.

From them, Berkhofer arrives at a clear vision of the forms historical discourse might take, advocates a new approach to historical criticism, and proposes new forms of historical representation that encompass multiculturalism, poetics, and reflexive (con)textualization. He elegantly blends traditional and new methodology; assesses what the "revival of the narrative" actually entails; considers the politics of disciplinary frameworks; and derives coherent new approaches to writing, teaching, reviewing, and reading histories.

This book considers how nature - in both its biological and environmental manifestations - has been invoked as a dynamic force in human history. It shows how historians, philosophers, geographers, anthropologists and scientists have used ideas of nature to explain the evolution of cultures, to understand cultural difference, and to justify or condemn colonization, slavery and racial superiority. It examines the central part that ideas of environmental and biological determinism have played in theory, and describes how these ideas have served in different ways at different times as instruments of authority, identity and defiance. The book shows how powerful and problematic the invocation of nature can be.

"The Problem of Nature" covers a whole cycle of environmental history and its interpretation, from the Black Death in the fourteenth century, the first European voyages of discovery and the opening of the American frontier through to the imperialism of the nineteenth century and the example of India under colonial rule. David Arnold shows how both the natural environment and ideas about nature have changed radically over the last five centuries.

The author describes the profound influence that historical and social theory and the biological sciences have had upon each other. He shows how the outcomes of their interaction not only informed and shaped the European impact upon the world and on itself, but how crucial they are to American conceptions of the society and history of the United States. He provides provocative answers to the questions of what role the environment should have in the conceptualization of time and place; and of how far societies and their histories can beunderstood from the perspectives of natural and biological sciences.

This book is the first to consider the presence of history and the question of historical practice in Walter Benjamin's work. Benjamin, the critic and philosopher of history, was also the practitioner, the authors contend, and it is in the practice of historical writing that the materialist aspect of his thought is most evident.

Some of the essays analyze Benjamin's writings in cultural history and the philosophy of history. Others connect his historical and theoretical practices to issues in contemporary feminism and post-colonial studies, and to cultural contexts including the United States, Japan, and Hong Kong. In different ways, the authors all find in Benjamin's specific notion of historical materialism a dialectic between textual and cultural analysis which can reinvigorate the relation between literary and historical studies.

Ever since 1942, when Carl Hempel declared that historical events are explained by subsuming them under laws governing the occurrence of similar events, philosophers have debated the validity of explanations based on "covering laws." In The Logic of Historical Explanation, Clayton Roberts provides a key to understanding the role of covering laws in historical explanation. He does so by distinguishing between their use at the macro- and micro- levels, a distinction that no other scholar has made.

Roberts contends that the positivists were right to believe that covering laws are indispensable in historical explanations but wrong to think that these laws apply to macro-events (such as wars and revolutions). Similarly, the humanists were right to declare that historians do not explain the occurrence of macro-events by subsuming them under covering laws but wrong to deny the role of covering laws in tracing the course of events leading to the macro-event. Roberts resolves this debate by showing that, though useless in explaining macro-events, covering laws are indispensable in connecting the steps in an explanatory narrative. He then sets forth the logic of an explanatory narrative, explores the nature of rational explanation, and distinguishes the logic of historical interpretation from the logic of historical explanation.

Now in paperback! Documenting Localities is the first effort to summarize the past decade of renewed discussion about archival appraisal theory and methodology and to provide a practical guide for the documentation of localities. This book discusses the continuing importance of the locality in American historical research and archival practice, traditional methods archivists have used to document localities, and case studies in documenting localities. These chapters draw on a wide range of writings from archivists, historians, material culture specialists, historic preservationists, librarians, and other professionals in considering why we need to continue to stress the systematic documentation of geographic regions. The heart of the book is the presentation of a practical series of steps and tools archivists and manuscript curators can use in documenting localities. The final part of the book considers the need for the better education of archivists and manuscript curators in appraisal theory and methodology, with a description of the primary writings on new macroappraisal approaches forming the crux of how archivists need to consider documenting localities and regions. Useful to all archivists and manuscript curators grappling with how to contend with the increasing quantity and complexity of local records, recordkeeping systems, and other documentary forms.

The grand historical and social theorizing of early in this century-works that conjure up names like Marx, Spengler, Toynbee, and Sorokin-has been out of favor for many years. Only recently have two new schools of research, comparative civilizational studies and world systems analysis, emerged to examine societies in the broadest possible terms. These two intellectual movements have run on parallel tracks, seldom engaging in each other's work-until now! Sanderson invites the leading figures in these two groups-including Wallerstein, MacNeill, Frank, Wilkinson, Chase-Dunn, and Robertson-to compare and contrast their assumptions and conclusions about broad-scale social and historical change. A mixture of newly commissioned work and recently published articles, this book is unmatched as a useful introduction to current thinking about global historical change.

The collapse of historicism was not merely the demise of an academic tradition but signified a shift in the understanding of hermeneutics and metaphysics. Whereas earlier books have explored the rise and dominance of historicism within academic history, this is the first to trace its collapse and to show how it was shaped by larger philosophical and scientific concerns. Charles R. Bambach's lucid account of the demise of historicism within the context of German metaphysics provides a rich new perspective on the development of the young Heidegger's concept of "historicity" and on the origins of postmodern thought. Bambach reconstructs the methodological debates arising from a pervasive sense of crisis among German philosophers in the late nineteenth century. He details the divergent attempts by the Neo-Kantians, Nietzsche, and Dilthey to overcome the limitations of historical relativism. Heidegger's view of "historicity," Bambach shows, radically transforms the problematic of historicism into a discourse concerning the crisis of philosophical modernity.

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.

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.

"Reconstructing Marxism" explores fundamental questions about the structure of Marxist theory and its prospects for the future. The authors maintain that the disintegration of the old theoretical unity of classical Marxism is in part responsible for what is commonly called the "crisis of Marxism." Only a reconstructed Marxism can come to terms with this disintegration.
Addressing a range of problems in historical materialism and class analysis, the authors compare historical materialism with Darwinian evolutionary theory, and identify what is distinctively "historical" in Marx's theory of history. Through an evaluation of G.A. Cohen's defense and Anthony Giddens's critique of historical materialism they suggest what a plausible, yet still Marxist, theory of history might be. They analyze the relationship of micro-analysis to macro theory and the assignment of causal primacy in explanations, and present a general assessment of the current state of Marxist theory and the prospects for its analytical reconstruction.
Distinguished by the clarity of its presentation, the analytical rigor of its argument and its concern with fundamental philosophical and sociological issues, "Reconstructing Marxism" advances, at this critical juncture in the history of Marxism, a challenging new research program.

This first-time translation makes available to English-speaking readers a seminal essay in Latin American thought by one of Latin America's leading intellectuals. Originally published in Mixico in 1957, The Role of the Americas in History explores the meaning of the history of the Americas in relation to universal history. Zea endeavors to reveal the relationships that exist between the particular history of Latin America and the history that has been and is being made by other peoples. An unusual feature of Zea's analysis is that Iberia does not form part of Western consciousness.

Historians generally--and Marxists in particular--have presented the revolution of 1789 as a bourgeois revolution: one which marked the ascendance of the bourgeois as a class, the defeat of a feudal aristocracy, and the triumph of capitalism. Recent revisionist accounts, however, have raised convincing arguments against the idea of the bourgeois class revolution, and the model on which it is based. In this provocative study, George Comninel surveys existing interpretations of the French Revolution and the methodological issues these raise for historians. He argues that the weaknesses of Marxist scholarship originate in Marx's own method, which has led historians to fall back on abstract conceptions of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Comninel reasserts the principles of historical materialism that found their mature expression in Das Kapital; and outlines an interpretation which concludes that, while the revolution unified the nation and centralized the French state, it did not create a capitalist society.

This provocative essay uses as a starting place the work of two towering figures in Canadian intellectual history: Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan. Graeme Patterson questions conventional understanding of the thought of Innis and McLuhan and the relationship between their work. Historians have generally considered communications an area distinct from (and irrelevant to) their own. Harold Innis is usually regarded as having moved from the field of Canadian history in his early work to non-Canadian history and communications. The distinction, Patterson suggests, is false; both the early and the late work of Innis are in the field of communications and, indeed, so is the study of history itself. Using nineteenth-century Upper Canadian political history as a focus, Patterson applies communications theory to such familiar subjects as the Family Compact, responsible government, and the rebellion of 1837, and shows how Canadian opinion was generated and shaped by media of communication. Both Innis and McLuhan held that the technologies of writing and printing conditioned and structured human consciousness, resulting in 'literal mindedness.' Using that insight, Patterson explores the thinking of nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers of Canadian history, including Donald Creighton, J.M.S. Careless, and Chester Martin. In his challenge to long-standing views, Patterson offers a new way of understanding the work of two key thinkers, and new ways to think about communications theory, Canadian history, historiography, and history as a discipline.

Western philosophies of history commonly regard nature as a mere arena in which human beings suffer, labour and create. In this lucid and clearly written contribution to the subject, Blackburn argues that such a narrow perspective must be transcended. Nature is not simply a backdrop for human actors, but is itself an active force which created and perpetually consumes the human species. It is the very reason why human beings perpetually recreate and destroy one another.
Drawing on a wide range of disciplines--from the natural science of Darwin and Prigogine to the social theories of the fourteenth-century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun and the cosmic speculations of the Vedas--Blackburn explores the dialectic of creation, preservation and destruction underlying human history. He recounts how this conflict is manifested through religion and war, pollution and plagues. European feudalism is analysed as a means of preventing Europe's destruction by Moors, Magyars and Vikings; the Chinese empire of contending with ecological catastrophe and barbarian invasion.
To conquer or be conquered; to develop or be destroyed by nature: these are predicaments set by the Vampire of Reason. Hegel's idea of a Cunning of Reason guiding history is belied, yet partly vindicated by nature; a hidden hand unfolds, not only in the capitalist marketplace but in a Darwinian struggle for social existence accelerating human history.

In this ambitious work, Fred Weinstein confronts the obstacles that have increasingly frustrated our attempts to explain social and historical reality. Traditionally, we have relied on history and social theory to describe the ways people understand the world they live in. But the ordering explanations we have always used--derived from the classical social theories originally forged by Marx, Tocqueville, Weber, Durkheim, Freud--have collapsed.
In the wake of this collapse or fall, the rival claims of fiction, psychoanalysis, sociology, anthropology, and history have created the dilemma of radical relativism, the prospect of multiple interpretations of any complex historical event. The basic strategy of social theory and the social sciences--the search for underlying unities--proves so inherently contradictory and has provided so little in the way of reliable knowledge of social and historical relationships that to many critics it seems no longer worth pursuing.
Weinstein enters the debate by rejecting any search for underlying structural unities, dynamic or social, through which historians have attempted to find continuity with the past. He looks instead to ideological processes, to the construction of successive and changing versions of reality that mediate between the power of fantasy on the one side and the power of the social world on the other. He argues further that the need to use ideological constructs in this way accounts for the heterogeneous and changing content of social movements and for the persistent need people have always had for authoritative leaders, even in democratized societies. He suggests that people have historically been able to take a step away from leaders only by substituting the possession of objects such as property or money. This book is a breakthrough in poststructuralist theory that is sure to stimulate considerable discussion, especially about the shape of the social sciences and the future of historical interpretation.

In 1985, the well-known monthly magazine, History Today, ran a series of articles by distinguished contributors on different branches of history and the problems involved for historians in studying, researching and writing in these areas of history. A selection of these essays now appears in book form, edited by Juliet Gardiner, the former editor of History Today.

From Simon & Schuster, the Adventures of Ideas is Alfred North Whitehead's historical adventure. The title of this book, Adventures of Ideas, bears two meanings, both applicable to the subject-matter. One meaning is the effect of certain ideas in promoting the slow drift of mankind towards civilization. This is the Adventure of Ideas in the history of mankind. The other meaning is the author's adventure in framing a speculative scheme of ideas which shall be explanatory of the historical adventure.

Told for the very first time, this is the true story of the adventure that shaped the world . . . 'A thrilling story of courage, survival and science. It's an extraordinary, visceral and vivid read' Geographical Magazine ________ Three hundred years ago no one knew the true shape of the world. It wasn't a sphere - but did it bulge at the equator or was it pointed at the poles? Until we found out no map could ever be truly accurate. So a team of scientists was sent to South America - to measure one full degree of latitude. But South America was a land of erupting volcanoes, sodden rainforests, earthquakes, deadly diseases, tropical storms and violent unrest. And the misfit scientists had an unfortunate tendency to squander funds, fight duels, stumble into mutinies or die horribly. The tale of their ten-year odyssey of exploration, discovery, flirtations with failure and ultimate triumph becomes in Nicholas Crane's hands the greatest scientific adventure story ever told. ________ 'Pace, rigour and attention to enticing detail . . . Crane has a rare knack for showing people things without them having to get out of their chair' Joe Smith, director of The Royal Geographic society

Indigenous peoples have our own ways of defining oral history. For many, oral sources are shaped and disseminated in multiple forms that are more culturally textured than just standard interview recordings. For others, indigenous oral histories are not merely fanciful or puerile myths or traditions, but are viable and valid historical accounts that are crucial to native identities and the relationships between individual and collective narratives. This book challenges popular definitions of oral history that have displaced and confined indigenous oral accounts as merely oral tradition. It stands alongside other marginalized community voices that highlight the importance of feminist, Black, and gay oral history perspectives, and is the first text dedicated to a specific indigenous articulation of the field. Drawing on a Maori indigenous case study set in Aotearoa New Zealand, this book advocates a rethinking of the discipline, encouraging a broader conception of the way we do oral history, how we might define its form, and how its politics might move beyond a subsuming democratization to include nuanced decolonial possibilities.

With a recent surge of interest in the field, a volume taking stock of important theoretical shifts in the philosophy of history is greatly needed. A Philosophy of History fills this gap by weaving together a range of perspectives on the field which finds itself at a crossroads, and asks where it is headed in the 21st century. The book takes a concerted effort to go beyond the customary three-fold distinction between the speculative, analytic and narrativist approaches in philosophy of history. It considers, what comes after the enduring 'narrativist turn'. Chapters incorporate cutting-edge discussions on the relevance of contemporary political phenomena such as populism, the relation between science and history, pragmatism and the paradigmatic challenge of the Anthropocene. It also re-evaluates the continued relevance of major historical thinkers like Leibniz and R.G. Collingwood, and the endlessly fresh insights they can offer to key debates in the field today. Philosophy of History is a much-needed reappraisal of the philosophy and theory of history; offering an up-to-date overview of major developments in the field, and addressing the pressing questions of where to go next in a 'post-analytical', 'post-narrativist' world.