Womersley examines Gibbon's conflict with his critics, in particular the spokesmen for religious orthodoxy. By considering the sequence of interactions between the historian and his readership, he illuminates what might be called Gibbon's experience of himself, at the same time deepening our understanding of the conditions of English authorship during the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Creating an unconventional portrait of the life and thought of an Enlightenment historian and scientist, this study focuses upon Jeremy Belknap's letters, journals, and essays, which provide a clear sense of how a dialogue with the past can yield an appreciation of life and acceptance of self. Author of the three volume "History of New Hampshire" and the two volume "American Biography," Jeremy Belknap (1744-1798) was the American Plutarch because he used the past to learn more about his own life and the lives of others. He experienced the past vicariously through his imagination and experientially through his journeys throughout New England in search of clues to the explanation of the natural and human past of America.

The book is built around Belknap's engaging correspondence with his friend Ebenezer Hazard, as well as Belknap's own travel journals of his expeditions to upstate New York and throughout New Hampshire. His journey to the White Mountains of New Hampshire in 1784 was the climax of his active inquiry into the past. Far from a dry, historiographical account, this study provides a fluid and descriptive narrative of Belknap, his journeys, and his times. This is a unique portrayal of human nature in general and 18th century society in particular.

E. H. Carr (1892-1982) was born into security but lived a life of controversy. Attacked for appeasing both Hitler and Stalin, he was not only one of the most productive writers of the 20th century but one of its most provocative as well. In this book--the first ever to deal critically but fairly with Carr's contribution to international relations, Soviet Studies and the study of history--16 internationally respected contributors grapple with his complex intellectual legacy. For those seriously interested in understanding the life and times of this most English of establishment radicals this is the place to begin.

Environmental History is one of the most exciting and rapidly expanding new areas of historical study, and draws upon a wide range of disciplines for its insights and themes. Nature's End provides fifteen essays from historians, geographers, anthropologists and natural scientists on key themes and methods in the field, that address both those new to environmental history and seasoned practitioners. These studies illustrate the diversity of approaches to historic relationships between humans and their environments, but throughout the book connect these to core narratives in more traditional history: the role of the state and institutions, the importance of intellectual fashions and politics, and the role of the sciences and history itself, as well as the importance of ecology, and thinking about conservation, risk and human destiny.

The partition of Africa was one of the most spectacular episodes in modern history. For Europeans, Africa was still an unknown continent in 1880. Thirty years later almost all of it was under European control. This race for colonies went hand in hand with a host of thrilling exploits and dramatic conflicts, of which Stanley's exploration of the Congo and Gordon's death in Khartoum are just two examples.

The partition of Africa was one of the most spectacular episodes in modern history. For Europeans, Africa was still an unknown continent in 1880. Thirty years later, almost all of it was under European control. This race for colonies went hand in hand with a host of thrilling exploits and dramatic conflicts, of which Stanley's exploration of the Congo and Gordon's death in Khartoum were just two examples. Although the end of the colonial period produced a great upsurge in historical writing on the subject, this book is the most complete general overview of the dramatic events that marked this period. Such major historical questions as the causes of European imperialism are also examined. The author, an internationally renowned authority in the field, analyzes these issues and presents his own views of them.

In "Divide and Rule," Wesseling dwells primarily on the historical developments. The many picturesque and problematic events are brought back to life. The leading characters are presented with gusto: the pioneers, the conquerors, the European politicians who tried to run the show no less, and the main African protagonists. For this reason, "Divide and Rule" is above all a story of one of the most dramatic highlights of the centuries-long history of European expansion.

Since the 1970s West German historiography has been one of the main arenas of international comparative history. It has produced important empirical studies particularly in social history as well as methodological and theoretical reflections on comparative history. During the last twenty years however, this approach has felt pressure from two sources: cultural historical approaches, which stress microhistory and the construction of cultural transfer on the one hand, global history and transnational approaches with emphasis on connected history on the other. This volume introduces the reader to some of the major methodological debates and to recent empirical research of German historians, who do comparative and transnational work.

Heinz-Gerhard Haupt is currently Professor of European History at the European University Institute. Previously, he was at the Universities of Bremen (1974-93), Halle (1993-98), and Bielefeld (1998-2004). He has been a Visiting Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris, University of Lyon II, and Columbia University and a Fellow at Princeton University. His publications in English include The Petite Bourgeoisie in Europe 1780-1914: Enterprise, Family and Independence (with G.Crossick, Routledge, 1995) and Europe in 1848: Revolution and Reform (edited with D. Dowe, D. Langewiesche, J. Sperber, 2001).

Jurgen Kocka is currently Professor for the History of the Industrial World at the Free University of Berlin, Research Professor at the Social Science Research Center Berlin and, regularly, a Visiting Professor at the University of California Los Angeles. Between 1973 and 1988 he taught in the University of Bielefeld. He has published widely in the field of modern history of Europe. His publications in the English language include Facing Total War. German Society 1914-1918 (Berg, 1984) and Industrial Culture and Bourgeois Society. Business, Labor, and Bureaucracy in Modern Germany (Berghahn, 1999)."

Beyond the Canon deals with recent politicized processes of canonization and its implications for historical culture in a globalizing and postcolonial world. The volume discusses the framing and transmission of historical knowledge, explores the philosophical foundations of canons, and its consequences for the construction of narratives and the teaching of history in multicultural class rooms and museums. Beyond the Canon introduces English-speaking readers to work by important scholars whose primary work has been in other languages.

This book investigates the significance of historical narratives in Soviet and post-Soviet space. Encompassing reform under Mikhail Gorbachev and retrenchment under Vladimir Putin, it explains the political, social, and cultural importance of a polity's myths. Charting the rise of anti-Soviet and anti-communist narratives under perestroika, and their eventual marginalization in post-Soviet Russia, the book argues that changes in symbolic politics must be examined within cultural, socio-political, and international contexts. Of particular relevance is the interactive relationship between state and society. The study of historical discourse must focus not only on how and why the state imposes its discursive preferences on society, thereby shaping public memory, but also on why and how the state itself is constructed by prevailing narratives in society.

A unique bibliographic and historiographic guide to the study of contemporary Italy, this book points to over 650 texts that have shaped the academic and scholarly study of postwar Italy. It is the first guide to include a genuine mix of English-language and Italian-language materials and to approach these materials in a historiographic as well as a bibliographic manner. It is an ideal guide for English, North American, and Italian scholars who have just begun their study of Italy or want to know more about research in areas outside their area of expertise.

Following the introduction, which outlines the context within which the evolution of Italian studies should be viewed, the book is divided into two parts. Part I includes five historiographic chapters providing a detailed survey and analysis of works published in history, politics, government, the economy, and society. Part II is an annotated bibliographic guide to all of the texts pointed to in Part I.

This book is a contribution to contemporary debates on social research with a unique focus on the relationship between methods and the crafting of knowledge. Nine experienced researchers from different disciplines have come together to explore what really matters to them in the process of doing qualitative research.

The greatest problem in historical scholarship, theoretically and practically, is the relation between historians and their subject matter. The past is gone and historians can only study its remnants. On what basis do scholars select certain facts from the mass of data left from the past? How do they explain the interrelationship of the facts they select? What criteria do they use to evaluate their subject? The 35 volumes in this set, originally published between 1926 and 1990 discuss and answer these essential questions faced by historians. The development of historical understanding during the 18th and 19th centuries was one of the most striking features of Western culture. Both historiography and historical thinking advanced as never before. The historial movment of the 19th century was perhaps second only to the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century in transforming Western thought. One consequence was extensive organisation and professionalization of research, which the volumes in this set reflect.

Examines the ethical dilemma of whether, and how, archaeologists and other experts should work with the military to protect cultural property in times of conflict. The world reacted with horror to the images of the looting of the National Museum in Iraq in 2003 - closely followed by other museums and then, largely unchecked, or archaeological sites across the country. This outcome had been predicted by many archaeologists, with some offering to work directly with the military to identify museums and sites to be avoided and protected. However, this work has since been heavily criticised by others working in the field,who claim that such collaboration lended a legitimacy to the invasion. It has therefore served to focus on the broader issue of whether archaeologists and other cultural heritage experts should ever work with the military,and, if so, under what guidelines and strictures. The essays in this book, drawn from a series of international conferences and seminars on the debate, provide an historical background to the ethical issues facing cultural heritage experts, and place them in a wider context. How do medical and religious experts justify their close working relationships with the military? Is all contact with those engaged in conflict wrong? Does working with the military really constitute tacit agreement with military and political goals, or can it be seen as contributing to the winning of a peace rather than success in war? Are guidelines required to help define roles and responsibilities? And can conflict situations be seen as simply an extension of protecting cultural property on military training bases? The book opens and addresses these and other questions as matters of crucial debate. Contributors: Peter Stone, Margaret M. Miles, Fritz Allhoff, Andrew Chandler, Oliver Urquhart Irvine, Barney White-Spunner, Rene Teijgeler, Katharyn Hanson, Martin Brown, Laurie Rush, Francis Scardera, Caleb Adebayo Folorunso, Derek Suchard, Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly, John Curtis, Jon Price, Mike Rowlands, Iain Shearer

Zionism is an international political movement that was originally dedicated to the resettlement of Jewish people in the Promised Land, and is now synonymous with support for the modern state of Israel. This addition to the Short Histories of Big Ideas series looks at the controversial and topical notion of Zionism from a balanced viewpoint, concentrating on where it came from, how it accomplished its goals, and why it affected so many people.

Processing the Past explores the dramatic changes taking place in historical understanding and archival management, and hence the relations between historians and archivists. Written by an archivist and a historian, it shows how these changes have been brought on by new historical thinking, new conceptions of archives, changing notions of historical authority, modifications in archival practices, and new information technologies. The book takes an "archival turn" by situating archives as subjects rather than places of study, and examining the increasingly problematic relationships between historical and archival work. The book sets the background to these changes by showing how nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historians and archivists in Europe and North American came to occupy the same conceptual and methodological space. For both, authoritative history was based on authoritative archives and mutual understandings of scientific research. The authors then show how these connections changed as historians began to ask questions not easily answered by traditional documentation, and archivists began to confront an unmanageable increase in the amount of material they processed and the challenges of new electronic technologies. The book situates these changes in a review of contemporary historical concepts and archival practices. The authors contend that historians and archivists have divided into two entirely separate professions with distinct conceptual frameworks, training, and purposes, as well as different understandings of the authorities that govern their work. Processing the Past moves toward bridging this divide by speaking in one voice to these very different audiences as well as to general readers. The book concludes by raising the worrisome question of what future historical archives might be like if historical scholars and archivists no longer understand each other, and indeed, whether their now different notions of what is archival and historical will ever again be joined.

For those who study memory, there is a nagging concern that memory studies are inherently backward-looking, and that memory itself hinders efforts to move forward. Unhinging memory from the past, this book brings together an interdisciplinary group of prominent scholars who bring the future into the study of memory.

While bookstore shelves around the world have never ceased to display best-selling "life-and-letters" biographies in prominent positions, the genre became less popular among academic historians during the Cold War decades. Their main concern then was with political and socioeconomic structures, institutions, and organizations, or-more recently-with the daily lives of ordinary people and small communities. The contributors to this volume-all well known senior historians-offer self-critical reflections on problems they encountered when writing biographies themselves. Some of them also deal with topics specific to Central Europe, such as the challenges of writing about the lives of both victims and perpetrators. Although the volume concentrates on European historiography, its strong methodological and conceptual focus will be of great interest to non-European historians wrestling with the old "structure-versus-agency" question in their own work. Contributors: Volker R. Berghahn, Hartmut Berghoff, Hilary Earl, Jan Eckel, Willem Frijhoff, Ian Kershaw, Simone Lassig, Karl Heinrich Pohl, John C. G. Roehl, Angelika Schaser, Joachim Radkau, Cornelia Rauh-Kuhne, Mark Roseman, Christoph Strupp and Michael Wildt.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. This collection of short essays on texts in the history of democracy shows the diversity of ideas that contributed to the making of our present democratic moment. The selection of texts goes beyond the standard, Western-centric canonical history of democracy, with its beginnings in ancient Athens and its climax in the French and American revolutions, recovering some of the significant body of democratic and anti-democratic thought in Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere. It includes discussions of well-known philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, but also of a variety of thinkers much less well known in English as writers on democracy: Al Farabi, Bolivar, Gandhi, Radishchev, Lenin, Sun Yat-sen, and many others. The essays thus de-center our understanding of the moments where the idea of democracy was articulated, rejected, and appropriated. Spanning antiquity to the present and global in scope, with contributions by key scholars of democracy from around the world, Democratic Moments is the ideal text for all students wishing to expand their understanding of the ways in which this contested concept has been understood.

"Ten essays, each with extensive citations, by prominent German and US scholars consider significant themes in German history.A clearly organized 'selected bibliography' adds to its importance for students and scholars interested in this path breaking shift toward a more balanced understanding of Germany's history. Highly recommended." . Choice A wonderful compendium, perfect for classroom use - and a terrific resource for scholars. The essays provide valuable original perspectives on some of the most significant controversies currently engaging historians of Germany, as they also document just how profoundly careful attention to questions of gender has infused and transformed many subfields in German history - including the study of religion, political protest, war, and colonialism. . Dagmar Herzog, Graduate Center, City University of New York Authors take on the big themes and debates of German history, providing unparalleled evidence -- including extensive footnotes and a bibliographical chapter -- that gender has not only challenged mainstream ("malestream") German history but has in many cases, indeed, rewritten it. This rich and thought-provoking book is a "must" for scholars and students concerned with historiographical debates, the transatlantic dialogue among scholars, and issues of theory and methodology. It will also attract a public interested in gender history and is intrigued by the effects of gender more generally. . Marion Kaplan, New York University This incisive collection of essays details the impact of a focus on women and gender on historical writing on modern Germany. Attuned to developments in the United States and Germany, the essays carefully distinguish points of convergence and divergence in approach and methodology between the two academic cultures and provide a nuanced overview of the current state of the field as well as desiderata for the future. Leading scholars illuminate how gendered perspectives have revolutionized understanding of the conventional stuff of history - such as nation, politics, military, religion, and the state - while opening up critical new avenues of analysis around citizenship, family, sexuality, colonialism, minority relations, and memory. An invaluable resource for students and scholars of German history and gender studies alike. . Heide Fehrenbach, Northern Illinois University Karen Hagemann is the James G. Kenan Distinguished Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on modern German and European History and Gender History, in particular the history of labor, welfare, and education, the women's movements, and the nation, military, and war. Jean H. Quataert is Professor of German History and Women's Studies at Binghamton University, SUNY. Her research focuses on the history of the labor movement, the history of nation and gender, and most recently human rights history and global women's history in 19th and 20th century."

This collection of essays explores how historians of theatre apply ethical thinking to the attempt to truthfully represent their subject - whether that be the life of a well-known performer, or the little known history of colonial theatre in India - by exploring the process by which such histories are written, and the challenges they raise.

In this new study of George Eliot's fiction, textual attempts to imagine a coherent and unified national past are seen as producing a contradictory vision of Englishness. It is a historiographical national identity, constructed in the image of predominant, and conflicting, trends in the Victorian writing of history. The inherent uncertainty caused by the shift between different perceptions of English history leads, in the later fiction, to an abandonment of contemporaneous grand narratives. The consequence is a history that anticipates a more modern, radical philosophy of history.

How do the ethical implications of writing theatrical histories complicate the historiographical imperative in our current sociopolitical context? This volume investigates a historiography whose function is to be a mode of thinking and exposes the inner contradictions in social and ideological organizations of historical subjects.

First published in 1955 to wide acclaim, James Joll's introduction to the history and development of International Socialism before the First World War is of crucial importance for understanding the development of Left-wing movements in the 20th century: the difficulties posed by prominent anarchist groups, the ambiguities of the scope of revolutionary activity, and the challenges posed by the rise of nationalism. Incorporating insightful research into the international links and the ideological structure of socialism, as well as on the structure of individual parties and the actual nature of their working-class support, The Second International 1889-1914 is a valuable resource for political historians and students of socialist thought alike.

This series aims at bridging the gap between historical theory and the study of historical memory as well as western and non-western concepts, for which this volume offers a particularly good example. It explores cultural differences in conceptualizing time and history in countries such as China, Japan, and India as well as pre-modern societies.

Jorn Rusen was Professor of Modern History at the Universities of Bochum and Bielefeld for many years. From 1994 to 1997 he was the Executive Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Study (Zif). Since 1997 he has been President of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities in Essen and Professor for General History and Historical Culture at the University of Witten-Herdecke.