9781138296251: How History Works
Couverture souple
ISBN 10 : 1138296252 ISBN 13 : 9781138296251
Editeur : Routledge, 2019

Synopsis

How History Works assesses the social function of academic knowledge in the humanities, exemplified by history, and offers a critique of the validity of historical knowledge. The book focusses on history's academic, disciplinary ethos to offer a reconception of the discipline of history, arguing that it is an existential liability: if critical analysis reveals the sense that history offers to the world to be illusory, what stops historical scholarship from becoming a disguise for pessimism or nihilism?

History is routinely invoked in all kinds of cultural, political, economic, psychological situations to provide a reliable account or justification of what is happening. Moreover, it addresses a world already receptive to comprehensive historical explanations: since everyone has some knowledge of history, everyone can be manipulated by it. This book analyses the relationship between specialized knowledge and everyday experience, taking phenomenology (Husserl) and pragmatism (James) as methodological guides. It is informed by a wide literature sceptical of the sense academic historical expertise produces and of the work history does, represented by thinkers such as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Valéry, Anders and Cioran.

How History Works discusses how history makes sense of the world even if what happens is senseless, arguing that behind the smoke-screen of historical scholarship looms a chaotic world-dynamic indifferent to human existence. It is valuable reading for anyone interested in historiography and historical theory.

Les informations fournies dans la section « Synopsis » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

À propos de l?auteur

Martin L. Davies is Emeritus Reader in History at the University of Leicester. His publications include Identity or History? Marcus Herz and the End of the Enlightenment (1995), Historics: Why History Dominates Contemporary Society (Routledge, 2006) and Imprisoned by History: Aspects of Historicized Life (Routledge, 2010).

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Éditeur
Routledge
Date d'édition
2019
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
1138296252
ISBN 13 
9781138296251
Reliure
Broché
Nombre de pages
196
Coordonnées du fabricant
non disponible
Personne responsable
non disponible

Autres éditions populaires du même titre

9781138932128: How History Works

Edition présentée

ISBN 10 :  1138932124 ISBN 13 :  9781138932128
Editeur : Routledge, 2019
Couverture rigide