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      • Trusted Partner
        Historiography
        July 2013

        The Debate on the Crusades, 1099–2010

        by Christopher Tyerman

        David Hume, the eighteenth century philosopher, famously declared that 'the crusades engrossed the attention of Europe and have ever since engaged the curiosity of man kind'. This is the first book length study of how succeeding generations from the First Crusade in 1099 to the present day have understood, refashioned, moulded and manipulated accounts of these medieval wars of religion to suit changing contemporary circumstances and interests. The crusades have attracted some of the leading historical writers, scholars and controversialists from John Foxe (of Book of Martyrs fame), to the philosophers G.W. Leibniz, Voltaire and David Hume, to historians such as William Robertson, Edward Gibbon and Leopold Ranke. Accessibly written, a history of histories and historians, the book will be of interest to students and researchers of crusading history from sixth form to postgraduate level and beyond and to cultural historians of the use of the past and of medievalism.

      • Trusted Partner
        Historiography
        July 2013

        The debate on the rise of the British Empire

        by Anthony Webster

        This fascinating and highly useful book examines the rise of the British empire and the various debates among historians of imperialism over the past two hundred years. It discusses why the empire is so attractive to historians, why there is so much debate and controversy surrounding the subject, and how different generations of historians have read the various episodes in the history of the empire often radically differently. Chapters look at the enduring fascination with the empire among historians; early twentieth century economic explanations for the dynamic expansion of the empire in the Victorian period; the controversies surrounding empire in the 1950s; post colonial theory and its critics; religion, race, gender and class; and debates on capitalism and the empire since the 1980. The final chapter investigates how Britain's imperial history might be viewed in years to come. An engaging and useful work of historiography, this book will be essential reading for students of British imperialism attempting to get to grips with the subject.

      • Trusted Partner
        Historiography
        July 2013

        Popular culture and working–class taste in Britain, 1930–39

        A round of cheap diversions?

        by Robert James

        This book examines the relationship between class and culture in 1930s Britain. Focusing on the reading and cinema-going tastes of the working classes, Robert James' landmark study combines rigorous historical analysis with a close textual reading of visual and written sources to appraise the role of popular leisure in this fascinating decade. Drawing on a wealth of original research, this lively and accessible book adds immeasurably to our knowledge of working-class leisure pursuits in this contentious period. It is a key intervention in the field, providing both an imaginative approach to the subject and an abundance of new material to analyse, thus making it an undergraduate and postgraduate 'must-have'. It will be a particularly welcome addition for anyone interested in the fields of cultural and social history, as well as film, cultural and literary studies.

      • Trusted Partner
        Historiography
        July 2013

        Popular culture and working–class taste in Britain, 1930–39

        A round of cheap diversions?

        by Robert James

        This book examines the relationship between class and culture in 1930s Britain. Focusing on the reading and cinema-going tastes of the working classes, Robert James' landmark study combines rigorous historical analysis with a close textual reading of visual and written sources to appraise the role of popular leisure in this fascinating decade. Drawing on a wealth of original research, this lively and accessible book adds immeasurably to our knowledge of working-class leisure pursuits in this contentious period. It is a key intervention in the field, providing both an imaginative approach to the subject and an abundance of new material to analyse, thus making it an undergraduate and postgraduate 'must-have'. It will be a particularly welcome addition for anyone interested in the fields of cultural and social history, as well as film, cultural and literary studies.

      • Trusted Partner
        Historiography
        July 2012

        Popular culture and working–class taste in Britain, 1930–39

        A round of cheap diversions?

        by Robert James

        This book examines the relationship between class and culture in 1930s Britain. Focusing on the reading and cinema-going tastes of the working classes, Robert James' landmark study combines rigorous historical analysis with a close textual reading of visual and written sources to appraise the role of popular leisure in this fascinating decade. Drawing on a wealth of original research, this lively and accessible book adds immeasurably to our knowledge of working-class leisure pursuits in this contentious period. It is a key intervention in the field, providing both an imaginative approach to the subject and an abundance of new material to analyse, thus making it an undergraduate and postgraduate 'must-have'. It will be a particularly welcome addition for anyone interested in the fields of cultural and social history, as well as film, cultural and literary studies.

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2017

        Inventing the cave man

        From Darwin to the Flintstones

        by Andrew Horrall, Jeffrey Richards

        Fred Flintstone lived in a sunny Stone Age American suburb, but his ancestors were respectable, middle-class Victorians. They were very amused to think that prehistory was an archaic version of their own world because it suggested that British ideals were eternal. In the 1850s, our prehistoric ancestors were portrayed in satirical cartoons, songs, sketches and plays as ape-like, reflecting the threat posed by evolutionary ideas. By the end of the century, recognisably human cave men inhabited a Stone Age version of late-imperial Britain, sending-up its ideals and institutions. Cave men appeared constantly in parades, civic pageants and costume parties. In the early 1900s American cartoonists and early Hollywood stars like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton adopted and reimagined this very British character, cementing it in global popular culture. Cave men are an appealing way to explore and understand Victorian and Edwardian Britain.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2018

        The history of emotions

        by Rob Boddice, Geoffrey Cubitt

        This book introduces students and professional historians to the main areas of concern in the history of emotions. It discusses how the emotions intersect with other lines of historical research relating to power, practice, society and morality. Addressing criticism from within and without the discipline of history, the book offers a rigorous defence of this new approach, demonstrating its potential centrality to historiographical practice, as well as the importance of this kind of historical work for our general understanding of the human brain and the meaning of human experience.

      • Trusted Partner
        Historiography
        July 2013

        Reflections on the Marxist theory of history

        by Paul Blackledge

        A decade after Francis Fukuyama announced the 'End of History', anti-capitalist demonstrators at Seattle and elsewhere have helped reinvigorate the Left with the reply 'another world is possible'. More than anyone else it was Marx who showed that slogans such as this were no utopian fantasies, and that capitalism was just as much a historical mode of production, no more natural and certainly no less contradictory, than were the feudal and slave modes which proceeded it. Paul Blackledge opens this study with a defence of the Marxist approach to the study of history against what he argues as being the naive empiricism of traditional historians and the relativism of the postmodernists. He moves on to outline Marx and Engels analyses of concrete historical processes and their critiques of the alternative historiographic methodologies of their contemporaries. He then discusses neglected historical works produced by Marxists in the half-century or so after Marx and Engels' deaths. Two central chapters survey recent Marxist debates on, first, the nature of modes of productions, including slave, feudal and tributary systems, and the revolutionary transitions between them; and, second, the methodological debate over the issue of structure and agency in the movement of history. Finally, he shows the political relevance of these debates through a concluding survey of competing Marxist attempts to periodise the present, postmodern, conjuncture. This book should be read by historians, students of cultural, social and political theory and anti-capitalist activists.

      • Trusted Partner
        Historiography
        January 2013

        Historiography

        An introduction

        by Roger Spalding, Christopher Parker

        Historiography can be a daunting term for those not familiar with it. This book presents the key ideas behind the term, in a clear and accessible fashion. The opening chapters introduce the reader to the practices that characterise the subject, while the final chapters address the History of Nazism, Gender History and Cultural History, and seek to demonstrate that the historiographies of these sub-disciplines grow and develop in response to changes within society at large. This book aims to show that History is not simply an academic subject, but an active and contested factor shaping the nature of the societies we live in. As politicians, in particular, seek to validate their actions by drawing parallels between the past and present, an ability to test these claims for logic and coherence, and to assess the evidence used to support them becomes not simply a valuable academic skill, but a vital requirement for active citizenship.

      • Trusted Partner
        Historiography
        January 2013

        Historiography

        An introduction

        by Roger Spalding, Christopher Parker

        Historiography can be a daunting term for those not familiar with it. This book presents the key ideas behind the term, in a clear and accessible fashion. The opening chapters introduce the reader to the practices that characterise the subject, while the final chapters address the History of Nazism, Gender History and Cultural History, and seek to demonstrate that the historiographies of these sub-disciplines grow and develop in response to changes within society at large. This book aims to show that History is not simply an academic subject, but an active and contested factor shaping the nature of the societies we live in. As politicians, in particular, seek to validate their actions by drawing parallels between the past and present, an ability to test these claims for logic and coherence, and to assess the evidence used to support them becomes not simply a valuable academic skill, but a vital requirement for active citizenship.

      • Trusted Partner
        Historiography
        November 2015

        The Debate on the English Reformation

        Second edition

        by Rosemary O’Day

        Extensively revised and updated, this new edition of The debate on the English Reformation combines a discussion of successive historical approaches to the English Reformation with a critical review of recent debates in the area, offering a major contribution to modern historiography as well as to Reformation studies. It explores the way in which successive generations have found the Reformation relevant to their own times and have in the process rediscovered, redefined and rewritten its story. It shows that not only people who called themselves historians but also politicians, ecclesiastics, journalists and campaigners argued about interpretations of the Reformation and the motivations of its principal agents. The author also shows how, in the twentieth century, the debate was influenced by the development of history as a subject and, in the twenty-first century, by state control of the academy. Undergraduates, researchers and lecturers alike will find this an invaluable and essential companion to their studies.

      • Trusted Partner
        Historiography
        August 2016

        The houses of history

        A critical reader in history and theory, second edition

        by Anna Green, Kathleen Troup

        The houses of history is a clear, jargon-free introduction to the major theoretical approaches employed by historians. This innovative critical reader provides accessible introductions to fourteen schools of thought, from the empiricist to the postcolonial, including chapters on Marxist history, Freud and psychohistory, the Annales, historical sociology, narrative, gender, public history and the history of the emotions. Each chapter begins with a succinct description of the ideas integral to a particular theory. The authors then explore the insights and controversies arising from the application of this model, drawing upon debates and examples from around the world. Each chapter concludes with a representative example from a historian writing within this conceptual framework. This newly revised edition of the highly successful textbook is the ideal basis for an introductory course in history and theory for students of history at all levels.

      • Trusted Partner
        Historiography
        August 2016

        The houses of history

        A critical reader in history and theory, second edition

        by Anna Green, Kathleen Troup

        The houses of history is a clear, jargon-free introduction to the major theoretical approaches employed by historians. This innovative critical reader provides accessible introductions to fourteen schools of thought, from the empiricist to the postcolonial, including chapters on Marxist history, Freud and psychohistory, the Annales, historical sociology, narrative, gender, public history and the history of the emotions. Each chapter begins with a succinct description of the ideas integral to a particular theory. The authors then explore the insights and controversies arising from the application of this model, drawing upon debates and examples from around the world. Each chapter concludes with a representative example from a historian writing within this conceptual framework. This newly revised edition of the highly successful textbook is the ideal basis for an introductory course in history and theory for students of history at all levels.

      • Trusted Partner
        Historiography
        June 2004

        Reconsidering Gallipoli

        by Jenny Macleod

        The British cultural history of the Gallipoli campaign has been overlooked until now - this is a significant book as it offers the first real opportunity for this important campaign to be included in undergraduate courses on WWI. The commemoration of war is a particularly vibrant area of study - Anzac Day, commemorating the landings that began the Gallipoli campaign, is central to Australian national consciousness and this book examines why. A crucial argument in the cultural history of the First World War was sparked by Paul Fussell's contention that the war signified a profound cultural rupture; in widening the debate from the Western Front, this book supports the counter argument that romantic modes of expression retained resonance and utility. In Australia, the renewal of the story of Gallipoli by historians and film-makers (notably Peter Weir's 1981 film starring Mel Gibson) has profoundly altered the national sense of identity and society's perceptions of the armed forces; the authors explains how the writing of this particular event has developed and achieved this central position. An essential volume for those interested in British military and Australian history, postcolonialism and nation building, from academics and students through to the general reader.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        December 2000

        Ways of Knowing

        A new history of science, technology and medicine

        by John V. Pickstone, Martin Hargreaves

        Discusses the historical development of science, technology and medicine in Western Europe and North America from the Renaissance to the present. Identifies four principle ways of knowing within specific periods: natural history in the eighteenth century analysis following the French Revolution experiment in the epoch of modernism the current presence of technoscience. Balances the historical exposition of natural magic and natural theology with a philosophical interpretation of the Scientific Revolution and reflective comments on Foucault and Collingwood. Strikes a balance between theoretical discussion and empirical illustration. Redefines the geography of science, technology and medicine. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Historiography
        July 1992

        The Historian's craft

        by Marc Bloch

        This work, by the co-founder of the "Annales School" deals with the uses and methods of history. It is useful for students of history, teachers of historiography and all those interested in the writings of the Annales school. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2018

        The history of emotions

        by Rob Boddice, Geoffrey Cubitt

        This book introduces students and professional historians to the main areas of concern in the history of emotions. It discusses how the emotions intersect with other lines of historical research relating to power, practice, society and morality. Addressing criticism from within and without the discipline of history, the book offers a rigorous defence of this new approach, demonstrating its potential centrality to historiographical practice, as well as the importance of this kind of historical work for our general understanding of the human brain and the meaning of human experience.

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