Gabrielle Spiegel presents an essential new collection of key articles that examine the current status of the debate over the "linguistic turn" and attempt to rethink the practice of history in light of its implications. These are writings that operate within the framework of the linguistic turn, yet seek to move beyond its initial formulation and reception.
The volume offers a synoptic overview of the last twenty-five years of theoretical analysis of historical writing, with a critical examination of the key concepts and positions that have been in debate. The collection delineates the emergence of "practice theory" as a possible paradigm for future historical interpretation concerned with questions of agency, experience and the subject.
Articles drawn from a mix of critical thinkers and practicing historians are drawn together along with clear and thorough editorial material. Complex ideas at the forefront of historical practice are revealed and made accessible to students, while for their teachers and other historians this new survey is an indispensable and timely read.

This essential collection of key articles offers a re-evaluation of the practice of history in light of current debates. Critical thinkers and practicing historians present their writings, along with clear and thorough editorial material, to examine the complex ideas at the forefront of historical practice.

This volume gives a synoptic overview of the last twenty-five yearsa (TM) theoretical analysis of historical writing, with a critical examination of the central concepts and positions that have been in debate. The collection delineates the emergence of "practice theory" as a possible paradigm for future historical interpretation concerned with questions of agency, experience and the subject.

These complex ideas are introduced to students in this accessible reader, and for teachers and historians too, this survey is an indispensable and timely read.

"Spiegel, in elegant and thoughtful fashion, and with a deep understanding of the period, provides us with a skillful analysis of the sources, their inter-connections, and the motives of their authors, which makes this a very useful and worthwhile book." -- "Virginia Quarterly Review"

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 basis for the study of medieval historiography, Spiegel demonstrates her theory in practice, offering readings of medieval histories and chronicles as literary, social, and political constructions. The study insightfully concludes that historians should be equally aware of the discursive nature, literary modes, and ideological investments of such texts and the social circumstances to which they were applied and by which they were generated. Arguing for the "social logic of the text," Spiegel provides historians with a way to retrieve the social significance and conceptual claims produced by these medieval or any historical writings.

" "The Past as Text" is successful in its entirety, as parts and as a whole. It is lucid, acute, deeply humane in the author's ongoing project of understanding the medieval past and thehistory-making present. It is a reader-friendly book in the very best sense. It is good theory and good history: postmodernism without apocalyptic posing, exhilarating and humane." -- Nancy F. Partner, McGill University

In a post-structuralist study of 13th-century French historical texts, the author investigates the reasons for the rise of French vernacular prose historiography at this particular time. She argues that the vernacular prose histories that have until now been regarded as royalist were actually products of the aristocracy, reflecting its anxiety as it faced social and economic change and political threats from the monarchy.