The Nature Of History Reader

The question of what the nature of history is, is now a key issue for all students of history. It is now recognised by many that the past and history are different phenomena and that the way the past is actively historicised can be highly problematic and contested. Older metaphysical, ontological, epistemological, methodological and ethical assumptions can no longer be taken as read. In this timely collection, key pieces of writing by leading historians are reproduced and evaluated, with an explanation and critique of their character and assumptions, and how they reflect upon the nature of the history project. The authors respond to the view that the nature of history has become so disparate in assumption, approach and practice as to require an informed guide that is both self-reflexive, engaged, critical and innovative. This work seeks to aid a positive re-thinking of history today, and will be of use both to students and to their teachers.

The question of what the nature of history is, is a key issue for all students of history. It is recognized by many that the past and history are different phenomena and that the way the past is actively historicized can be highly problematic and contested.

The Postmodern History Reader introduces students to the new points of controversy in the study of history and provides a framework by which to understand postmodernism and a guide to explore it further.

The editors illustrate how book history studies have evolved into a broad approach which incorporates social and cultural considerations governing the production, dissemination and reception of print and texts.

In 1978 historian Joseph Wall wrote that Iowa was “still seeking to assert its own identity. . . . It has no real center where the elite of either power, wealth, or culture may congregate. Iowa, in short, is middle America.” In this collection of well-written and accessible essays, originally published in 1996, seventeen of the Hawkeye State’s most accomplished historians reflect upon the dramatic and not-so-dramatic shifts in the middle land’s history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Marvin Bergman has drawn upon his years of editing the Annals of Iowa to gather contributors who cross disciplines, model the craft of writing a historical essay, cover more than one significant topic, and above all interpret history rather than recite it. In his preface to this new printing, he calls attention to publications that begin to fill the gaps noted in the 1996 edition. Rather than survey the basic facts, the essayists engage readers in the actual making of Iowa’s history by trying to understand the meaning of its past. By providing comprehensive accounts of topics in Iowa history that embrace the broader historiographical issues in American history, such as the nature of Progressivism and Populism, the debate over whether women’s expanded roles in wartime carried over to postwar periods, and the place of quantification in history, the essayists contribute substantially to debates at the national level at the same time that they interpret Iowa’s distinctive culture.

Book history has emerged in the last twenty years as one of the most important new fields of interdisciplinary study. It has produced new interpretations of major historical events, has made possible new approaches to history, literature, media, and culture, and presents a distinctive historical perspective on current debates about the future of the book. The Broadview Introduction to Book History provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to this field. Written in a lively, accessible style, chapters on materiality, textuality, printing and reading, intermediality, and remediation guide readers through numerous key concepts, illustrated with examples from literary texts and historical documents produced across a wide historical range. An ideal text for undergraduate and graduate courses in book history, it offers a road map to this dynamic inter-disciplinary field.

An anthology of essays and articles on nature, natural history, and the environment

Arranged in five thematic parts, "The Oral History Reader" covers key debates in the post-war development of oral history.