The Purpose of the Past
Subtitle: Reflections on the Uses of History
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The; Penguin Press
Published: March 13, 2008
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 336
ISBN-13: 9781594201547
Subjects: History; History - General History; History: American; Historiography; United States - General; History / United States / General; Criticism
Description: History is to society what memory is to the individual: without it, we don't know who we are, and we can't make wise decisions about where we should be going. But while the nature of memory is a constant, the nature of history has changed radically over the past forty years, for good but also for ill. Historian Wood examines the sea change in the field, offers insight into what historians do, and how they can stumble. New currents of thought have brought refreshing changes to the discipline, expanding its compass to previously underexamined and undervalued groups and subjects. At the same time, however, extreme, even nihilistic, relativism has assaulted the relevance, even the legitimacy, of the historian's work, and the divide between academic and popular historians has widened into a chasm, separating some of the field's most important new ideas from any kind of real audience.--From publisher description.