We justify our actions in the present through our understanding of the past. But we live in a time when politicians lie brazenly about historical facts and meddle with the content of history books, while media differ wildly in their reporting of the same event. Frequently, new discoveries force us to re-evaluate everything we thought we knew about the past. So how can any certainty about history be established, and why does it matter? Lynn Hunt shows why the search for truth about the past, as a continual process of discovery, is vital for our societies. History has an essential role to play in ensuring honest presentation of evidence. In this way, it can foster humility about our present-day concerns, a critical attitude toward chauvinism, and an openness to other peoples and cultures. History, Hunt argues, is our best defense against tyranny. Introducing Polity's Why It Matters series; in these short and lively books, world-leading thinkers make the case for the importance of their subjects and aim to inspire a new generation of students.

George Orwell wrote that "history is written by the winners". Even if that seems a bit too cut-and-dried, we can say that history is always written from a viewpoint but that viewpoints change, sometimes radically. The history of workers, women and minorities challenged the once unquestioned dominance of the tales of great leaders and military victories. Then cultural studies brought fresh perspectives but those too have run their course. With globalisation emerging as a major economic, cultural and political force, Lynn Hunt examines whether it can reinvigorate the telling of history. In tandem, she proposes a sweeping re-evaluation of individuals' agency and their place in society as the keys to understanding the way people and ideas interact. Writing History in the Global Era is bound to shake up the discipline and break new ground for historical studies.

The second edition of University Teaching in Focus distils the knowledge and insights of internationally acclaimed experts in university teaching. It empowers university teachers and contributes to their career success by developing their teaching skills, strategies and knowledge. Written in a clear and accessible style, it provides a sharp focus on student learning through the lens of four sections: Focus on subject and curriculum design Focus on subject teaching and learning Focus on students Focus on your career Each of the 15 chapters targets a key teaching and learning issue referencing seminal works, current resources and practical applications using real-world cases. The 'Your thoughts' sections encourage reflection and offer opportunities to adapt international evidence about best practice to local contexts and disciplines. This edition will be a key resource for foundational teaching development programs in higher education institutions or as a self-help manual by early career and experienced teachers who wish to enhance their students' learning.

This latest work from an author known for her contributions to the new cultural history is a daring, multidisciplinary investigation of the imaginative foundations of modern politics. Hunt uses the term 'Family Romance', (coined by Freud to describe the fantasy of being freed from one's family and belonging to one of higher social standing), in a broader sense, to describe the images of the familial order that structured the collective political unconscious. In a wide-ranging account that uses novels, engravings, paintings, speeches, newspaper editorials, pornographic writing, and revolutionary legislation about the family, Hunt shows that the politics of the French Revolution were experienced through the network of the family romance.

The Realities of Change in Higher Education explores the theory and practice of the everyday reality of change to promote learning and teaching in universities. Drawing on international case studies, it analyses a range of practical strategies to promote change that enhance students' learning. Structured to flow from analysis of policy level change through to small-scale change at curriculum level, experienced practitioners consider key topics including: national policies and strategies different leadership styles the advancement of teaching and learning through research and scholarship how communities of practice may be effective agents for change in higher education the relationship between technology and change student assessment as a strategic tool for enhancing teaching and learning. With practical advice to enhance the learning experience of increasing numbers of university students, this book will appeal to all practitioners involved in improving learning and teaching outcomes in higher education.

Using a wide range of artistic, iconographic, literary and historical sources, Lynn Hunt undertakes a Freudian-influenced-analysis of the French Revolution. The depostion of France's monarchy, allegations of Marie-Antoinette's sexual debauchery and incest with her son, followed by the execution of Louis XVI and later his wife, were part of an unfolding revolutionary family drama, in which the positions of fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters were being realigned according to the new standards of rationalism, universalism, and especially, fraternity. Lynn Hunt investigates how the narratives of family relations structured the collective political unconscious, and how the French Revolution violently disrupted the patriarchal model of authority. Hunt's argument includes re-readings of a number of interesting and sometimes bizarre, cultural manifestations that surfaced during the revolutionary period: literary obsessions with orphaned children and incest, pornography focusing on Marie-Antoinette and a tour-de-force analysis of Sade's work.

The second edition of University Teaching in Focus distils the knowledge and insights of internationally acclaimed experts in university teaching. It empowers university teachers and contributes to their career success by developing their teaching skills, strategies and knowledge. Written in a clear and accessible style, it provides a sharp focus on student learning through the lens of four sections: Focus on subject and curriculum design Focus on subject teaching and learning Focus on students Focus on your career Each of the 15 chapters targets a key teaching and learning issue referencing seminal works, current resources and practical applications using real-world cases. The 'Your thoughts' sections encourage reflection and offer opportunities to adapt international evidence about best practice to local contexts and disciplines. This edition will be a key resource for foundational teaching development programs in higher education institutions or as a self-help manual by early career and experienced teachers who wish to enhance their students' learning.

How were human rights invented, and how does their tumultuous history influence their perception and our ability to protect them today? From Professor Lynn Hunt comes this extraordinary cultural and intellectual history, which traces the roots of human rights to the rejection of torture as a means for finding the truth. She demonstrates how ideas of human relationships portrayed in novels and art helped spread these new ideals and how human rights continue to be contested today.

Situating the French Revolution in the context of early modern globalization for the first time, this book offers a new approach to understanding its international origins and worldwide effects. A distinguished group of contributors shows that the political culture of the Revolution emerged out of a long history of global commerce, imperial competition, and the movement of people and ideas in places as far flung as India, Egypt, Guiana, and the Caribbean. This international approach helps to explain how the Revolution fused immense idealism with territorial ambition and combined the drive for human rights with various forms of exclusion. The essays examine topics including the role of smuggling and free trade in the origins of the French Revolution, the entwined nature of feminism and abolitionism, and the influence of the French revolutionary wars on the shape of American empire.

The French Revolution in Global Perspective illuminates the dense connections among the cultural, social, and economic aspects of the French Revolution, revealing how new political forms at once democratic and imperial, anticolonial and centralizing were generated in and through continual transnational exchanges and dialogues.

Contributors: Rafe Blaufarb, Florida State University; Ian Coller, La Trobe University; Denise Z. Davidson, Georgia State University; Suzanne Desan, University of Wisconsin Madison; Lynn Hunt, University of California, Los Angeles; Andrew Jainchill, Queen's University; Michael Kwass, The Johns Hopkins University; William Max Nelson, University of Toronto; Pierre Serna, Universite Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne; Miranda Spieler, University of Arizona; Charles Walton, Yale University"

The Realities of Change in Higher Education explores the theory and practice of the everyday reality of change to promote learning and teaching in universities. Drawing on international case studies, it analyses a range of practical strategies to promote change that enhance students' learning. Structured to flow from analysis of policy level change through to small-scale change at curriculum level, experienced practitioners consider key topics including: national policies and strategies different leadership styles the advancement of teaching and learning through research and scholarship how communities of practice may be effective agents for change in higher education the relationship between technology and change student assessment as a strategic tool for enhancing teaching and learning. With practical advice to enhance the learning experience of increasing numbers of university students, this book will appeal to all practitioners involved in improving learning and teaching outcomes in higher education.

In this book Lynn Hunt and Jack R. Censer lucidly trace events from 1789 until the fall of Napoleon, stressing the global dimensions of the French Revolution and offering balanced coverage of both its causes and outcomes. In doing so, Hunt and Censer reaffirm its huge significance for the modern political world in the process. Hunt and Censer give due attention to global competition, fiscal crisis, slavery and the beginnings of nationalism alongside more traditional topics, such as human rights and constitutions, terror and violence, and the rise of authoritarianism. This global lens allows the authors to convincingly demonstrate how the French Revolution and Napoleonic Empire fundamentally altered the political landscapes of Europe, the Americas, North Africa and parts of Asia as well. The book also contains end-of-chapter questions, timelines and a wealth of primary source extracts for analysis and class discussion. This 2nd edition has been fully updated throughout and now includes: · A new first chapter which greatly enhances the wider 18th-century background material. It explains how events, trends, and personalities from the 1770s onwards created an opening that was turned into a world-shattering revolution. · A historiography textbox feature in each chapter that addresses topics and individuals like Louis XVI, terror, Robespierre and the Haitian Revolution. The feature sees two contrasting excerpts analysed and contextualized in each case. · 18 further images and 6 more maps for a stronger visual aspect and better geographical context.

George Orwell wrote that history is written by the winners. Even if that seems a bit too cut-and-dried, we can say that history is always written from a viewpoint but that viewpoints change, sometimes radically.

The history of workers, women, and minorities challenged the once-unquestioned dominance of the tales of great leaders and military victories. Then, cultural studies including feminism and queer studies brought fresh perspectives, but those too have run their course.

With globalization emerging as a major economic, cultural, and political force, Lynn Hunt examines whether it can reinvigorate the telling of history. She hopes that scholars from East and West can collaborate in new ways and write wider-ranging works.

At the same time, Hunt argues that we could better understand the effects of globalization in the past if we knew more about how individuals felt about the changes they were experiencing. She proposes a sweeping reevaluation of individuals active role and their place in society as the keys to understanding the way people and ideas interact. She also reveals how surprising new perspectives on society and the self from environmental history, the history of human-animal interactions, and even neuroscience offer promising new ways of thinking about the meaning and purpose of history in our time."

Situating the French Revolution in the context of early modern globalization for the first time, this book offers a new approach to understanding its international origins and worldwide effects. A distinguished group of contributors shows that the political culture of the Revolution emerged out of a long history of global commerce, imperial competition, and the movement of people and ideas in places as far flung as India, Egypt, Guiana, and the Caribbean. This international approach helps to explain how the Revolution fused immense idealism with territorial ambition and combined the drive for human rights with various forms of exclusion. The essays examine topics including the role of smuggling and free trade in the origins of the French Revolution, the entwined nature of feminism and abolitionism, and the influence of the French revolutionary wars on the shape of American empire.

The French Revolution in Global Perspective illuminates the dense connections among the cultural, social, and economic aspects of the French Revolution, revealing how new political forms at once democratic and imperial, anticolonial and centralizing were generated in and through continual transnational exchanges and dialogues.

Contributors: Rafe Blaufarb, Florida State University; Ian Coller, La Trobe University; Denise Z. Davidson, Georgia State University; Suzanne Desan, University of Wisconsin Madison; Lynn Hunt, University of California, Los Angeles; Andrew Jainchill, Queen's University; Michael Kwass, The Johns Hopkins University; William Max Nelson, University of Toronto; Pierre Serna, Universite Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne; Miranda Spieler, University of Arizona; Charles Walton, Yale University"

We justify our actions in the present through our understanding of the past. But we live in a time when politicians lie brazenly about historical facts and meddle with the content of history books, while media differ wildly in their reporting of the same event. Frequently, new discoveries force us to re-evaluate everything we thought we knew about the past. So how can any certainty about history be established, and why does it matter? Lynn Hunt shows why the search for truth about the past, as a continual process of discovery, is vital for our societies. History has an essential role to play in ensuring honest presentation of evidence. In this way, it can foster humility about our present-day concerns, a critical attitude toward chauvinism, and an openness to other peoples and cultures. History, Hunt argues, is our best defense against tyranny. Introducing Polity's Why It Matters series; in these short and lively books, world-leading thinkers make the case for the importance of their subjects and aim to inspire a new generation of students.

When this book was published in 1984, it reframed the debate on the French Revolution, shifting the discussion from the Revolution's role in wider, extrinsic processes (such as modernization, capitalist development, and the rise of twentieth-century totalitarian regimes) to its central political significance: the discovery of the potential of political action to consciously transform society by molding character, culture, and social relations. In a new preface to this twentieth-anniversary edition, Hunt reconsiders her work in the light of the past twenty years' scholarship.

Across the humanities and the social sciences, disciplinary boundaries have come into question as scholars have acknowledged their common preoccupations with cultural phenomena ranging from rituals and ceremonies to texts and discourse. Literary critics, for example, have turned to history for a deepening of their notion of cultural products; some of them now read historical documents in the same way that they previously read 'great' texts. Anthropologists have turned to the history of their own discipline in order to better understand the ways in which disciplinary authority was constructed. As historians have begun to participate in this ferment, they have moved away from their earlier focus on social theoretical models of historical development toward concepts taken from cultural anthropology and literary criticism. Much of the most exciting work in history recently has been affiliated with this wide-ranging effort to write history that is essentially a history of culture. The essays presented here provide an introduction to this movement within the discipline of history. The essays in Part One trace the influence of important models for the new cultural history, models ranging from the path breaking work of the French cultural critic Michel Foucault and the American anthropologist Clifford Geertz to the imaginative efforts of such contemporary historians as Natalie Davis and E. P. Thompson, as well as the more controversial theories of Hayden White and Dominick LaCapra. The essays in Part Two are exemplary of the most challenging and fruitful new work of historians in this genre, with topics as diverse as parades in 19th-century America, 16th-century Spanish texts, English medical writing, and the visual practices implied in Italian Renaissance frescoes. Beneath this diversity, however, it is possible to see the commonalities of the new cultural history as it takes shape. Students, teachers, and general readers interested in the future of history will find these essays stimulating and provocative.

"It is hard to think of three historians better equipped to deal with threats to the discipline of history . . . [which] is being fundamentallychallenged in new ways." —Gordon S. Wood, The New Republic

"A wise and moderate book. The authors, all distinguished historians . . . ,speak with confidence about the value of both the historian's traditional craftand modern criticism of it. Their sane and readable discussion should give hopeto [those] who . . . believe in the possibility—even the pleasure—of writing history." —Caroline Walker Bynum

"A fascinating historiographical essay. . . . An unusually lucid and inclusiveexplication of what it ultimately at stake in the culture wars over the nature,goals, and efficacy of history as a discipline." —Booklist

"A confident, breezy account of the historical profession's encounters withpost-modernism and multiculturalism." —David A. Hollinger, New York Times Book Review

Enter worlds of magic, love, pixies, and betrayal in this anthology by S. Lynn Hunt. Two lonely men meet on Halloween and need a little help getting things together. A warrior woman takes her young protege on an outing that is much more than a test. A sorceress must fight her grief to lead a people bequeathed to her, and a traveler searches for the goddess that called her to the desert. Then read a sneak-peek of the first three chapters of the first book in the Strange Magic series: In Touch With Death. Faith Donovan is a Talented agent for the National Investigative Bureau - Talented Division, and she loves her work. Soon, however, the ectocog's past will literally come back to haunt her.

By the end of the nineteenth century, women had become an undeniable force both in the public discussion of social life and in politics itself. Yet in art and literature women's bodies continued to be represented-- and domesticated-- by men. They were still more often the object of the artist's or writer's gaze than they were the subject of their own representing processes. The erotic potential of women's bodies, however, was far from a marginal concern in the elaboration of modern forms of politics, art, literature, and psychology.

In "Eroticism and the Body Politic," scholars from art history, history, and literature examine the frequent intersections between the body erotic and the body politic. Focusing on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France, they show how eroticized representations of bodies had a multitude of political and cultural meanings. The authors consider the eroticized body in a wide variety of media: from Fragonard's paintings of "erotic mothers," to political pornography attacking Marie Antoinette, to the "new woman" of fin-de-siecle decorative arts.

Exploring the possibilities of a multidisiplinary approach, the volume shows that eroticism had an impact far beyond the usual confines of libertine or pornographic literature-- and that politics included much more than voting, meeting, or demonstrating. At a time of general methodological ferment in the "human sciences," "Eroticism and the Body Politic" brings fresh approaches to the developing field of cultural studies.

Lynn Hunt and Jack R. Censer's The French Revolution and Napoleon provides a globally-oriented narrative history of events from 1789 until the fall of Napoleon. It emphasizes the global origins and consequences of the French Revolution and explains why it is the formative event for modern politics. The book integrates global competition, fiscal crisis, slavery and the beginnings of nationalism with the more traditional emphases on human rights and constitutions, terror and violence, and the rise of authoritarianism. This global approach then enables the authors - two world-renowned scholars in the field - to clearly illustrate how the French Revolution and Napoleonic Empire changed all the political givens for Europe, the Americas, North Africa and parts of Asia as well. Including numerous illustrations and maps, end-of-chapter questions, timelines and primary source document extracts for analysis in each chapter, this book is essential reading for all students of modern European history who want to understand the French Revolution and Napoleonic Empire in a truly global context.

Nothing has generated more controversy in the social sciences than the turn toward culture, variously known as the linguistic turn, culturalism, or postmodernism. This book examines the impact of the cultural turn on two prominent social science disciplines, history and sociology, and proposes new directions in the theory and practice of historical research.
The editors provide an introduction analyzing the origins and implications of the cultural turn and its postmodernist critiques of knowledge. Essays by leading historians and historical sociologists reflect on the uses of cultural theories and show both their promise and their limitations. The afterword by Hayden White provides an assessment of the trend toward culturalism by one its most influential proponents.
"Beyond the Cultural Turn" offers fresh theoretical readings of the most persistent issues created by the cultural turn and provocative empirical studies focusing on diverse social practices, the uses of narrative, and the body and self as critical junctures where culture and society intersect.