History, Politics, and the American Past: Essays on Methodology
- ISBN-10
- 1000038998
- ISBN-13
- 9781000038996
- Category
- History
- Pages
- 156
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2020-03-09
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Author
- Ari Helo
Description
History, Politics, and the American Past assesses the connection between historiography and politics in America on the basis of an important methodological distinction between the past and the history written about it. While necessarily interpreting the past, professional historians and those with a general interest alike remain tempted, consciously or not, to make American history serve their own political and moral views. There is a tendency to impose our present values on the past and sometimes go so far as to believe the past can be changed by present action. In this volume, Ari Helo analyzes examples of this, including metahistorical narratives, presidential speeches, and the occasionally vague rhetoric of the Confederate statue campaigns, before diagnosing the source of doing so and suggesting how we might avoid it. Taking America as its example, the book illuminates essential methodological issues related to history writing while deciphering the complicated relationship of history and politics. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of American history, historiography, American studies, and cultural studies, providing a vivid account of how to make sense of American history.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution
By Michael D. HattemPolitics and Memory in the American Revolution Michael D. Hattem. in the number and locations of printers can be seen at a glance in Frances P. Newton, American Bibliography, A Preliminary Checklist, 1801 to 1819 (Metuchen, 1983). 6.
-
These Truths: A History of the United States
By Jill LeporeFor her writings, see Ida B. Wells-Barnett, The Light of Truth: Writings of an Anti-lynching Crusader, ed. Mia Bay and Henry Louis Gates Jr. (New York: Penguin Books, 2014). Frederick Douglass, Letter, in Ida B. Wells, Southern Horrors: ...
-
Women and the Historical Enterprise in America: Gender, Race and the Politics of Memory: Gender, Race, and the Politics of...
By Julie Des JardinsDes Jardins explores the work of a wide variety of women historians, both professional and amateur, popular and scholarly, conservative and radical, white and nonwhite.
-
The American Political Tradition and the Men who Made it
By Richard HofstadterA revised edition of the clasic study of American politics from the Founding Fathers to FDR.
-
Created Equal: A Social and Political History of the United States
By Jacqueline JonesAmerican history consists of many stories - the story of territorial growth and expansion, the story of the rise of the middle class, the story of technological innovation and economic development, and the story of U.S. engagement with the ...
-
The Genius of American Politics
By Daniel J. BoorstinDaniel Boorstin's answer to this question has been chosen by the Carnegie Corporation of New York for representation in American Panorama as one of the 350 books, old and new, most descriptive of life in the United States.
-
America Past and Present
By Robert A. Divine, H. W. Brands, Ariela J. GrossWritten in a lively narrative style by award-winning historians, America Past and Present tells the story of all Americans–elite and ordinary, women and men, rich and poor, white majority and minorities.
-
History of American Politics (Non-Partisan): Embracing a History of the Federal Government and of Political Parties in the Colonies and...
By Walter Raleigh HoughtonThis work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.
-
Politics, American Style: Political Parties in American History
By Isobel V. MorinThis is an in-depth look at the evolution of political parties in America from the Constitutional Convention era to today. Readers will come away with an understanding of the workings...
-
Reclaiming the Political in Latin American History: Essays from the North
By Gilbert M. JosephAlthough the book represents a view of the Latin American political that comes primarily from the North, the influence of Viotti da Costa powerfully marks the contributors’ engagement with Latin America’s past.