Stranded in the present
Subtitle: modern time and the melancholy of history
By: Peter Fritzsche.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 268
Subjects: Historiography -- Europe -- History -- 19th century.; History -- Philosophy.; Historiography.; Historians -- Political and social views.; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Historiography.; Europe -- History -- 1789-1900.
Description: "In this book, Peter Fritzsche explores how Europeans and Americans saw themselves in the drama of history, how they took possession of a past thought to be slipping away, and how they generated countless stories about the sorrowful, eventful paths they chose to follow." "Tracing the scars of history, writers and painters, revolutionaries and exiles, soldiers and widows, and ordinary home dwellers took a passionate, even flamboyant, interest in the past. They argued politics, wrote diaries, devoured memoirs, and collected antiques, all the time charting their private paths against the tremors of public life. These nostalgic histories take place on battlefields trampled by Napoleon, along bucolic English hedges, against the fairytale silhouettes of the Grimms' beloved Germany, and in the newly constructed parlors of America's western territories." "This book takes a look at the modern age: our possessions, our heritage, and our newly considered selves."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [221]-260) and index.