Why Bother with History?: Ancient, Modern and Postmodern Motivations

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Routledge, 2013 M11 4 - 200 pages
.Why Bother With History? argues for an increasingly important role for a revitalised historical study. Examining the motivations of past historians, the author rejects the ancient aspiration to a 'history for its own sake' and argues that historians' importance lies in their own adoption of a moral standpoint, from which a story of the past can be told, that facilitates the attainment of a future we desire. Inevitably controversial, in that it challenges many of the assumptions of modernist history, this is an interdisciplinary book, which draws in particular on psychology and literature.
 

Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements
History for historys sake
History and historical examples
History and psychology Identity memory and forgetting meaning and purpose
History politics and power
History and religion
History and education
Postmodernism history and values
Postmodern history and the future
Bibliography
Index
Copyright

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About the author (2013)

Beverley Southgate is Reader Emeritus, University of Hertfordshire. His many publications include History- What and Why? (1996).

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