History and Memory (Historical Approaches) - Softcover

Geoffrey Cubitt

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0719060788 ISBN 13: 9780719060786

Publisher: Manchester University Press, 2007

Synopsis

In recent years, memory has become a central, though also a controversial, concept in historical studies a term that denotes both a new and distinctive field of study and a fresh way of conceptualizing history as a field of inquiry more generally. Thinking about memory, as both an individual and a collective or social phenomenon, has drawn historians into debates about the nature of their own discipline, and into fruitful but sometimes problematic exchanges with practitioners of other disciplines (sociology, psychology, anthropology, literary and cultural studies, etc.) This book, which is aimed both at specialists and at students, provides historians with an accessible and stimulating introduction to debates and theories about memory, and to the range of approaches that have been taken to the study of it in history and other disciplines. In doing this, it makes connections between what are often disparate areas of scholarship dealing, for example, with individual memory, with groups as mnemonic units, with practices of commemoration, and with the wide variety of ways in which relationships to the past are socially organized, politically contested and culturally articulated. The book contributes in a wide-ranging way to debate on some of the central conceptual problems of memory studies: the relationships between the individual and the collective, between memory as survival and memory as reconstruction, between remembering as a subjective experience and as a social or cultural practice, and between memory and history as modes of retrospective knowledge.

About this title

Synopsis:

This title is designed to have an appeal both to specialists already immersed in debates on history and memory and to those (e.g. students) seeking an introduction to the field. It bridges the gap between the idea of memory as a property of individual consciousness and memory as a social/cultural phenomenon. It is up-to-date interpretative introduction to recent approaches, debates, and ideas on to memory in history and related disciplines, including clear accounts of the leading theoretical contributions. It is relevant to undergraduate and graduate courses that deal with memory, the politics of the past, the heritage industry, and also to a much wider range of courses e.g. cultural or social history. It explores the implications of different approaches to memory and analyzes the terms in which debates about the relationship between history and memory have been conducted.

About the Author:

Geoffrey Cubitt is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History and the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at the University of York

About this edition

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0719060788
• ISBN 13: 9780719060786
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272