Search results
70 DISCIPLINES 5 History peter calvert The main purpose of this chapter is to show how historians have contributed to our understanding of the processes of democratization. In the course of this the main focus will be on the different views historians have taken of alternative paths to democracy and particularly its early stages – the so-called ‘first wave’ (see Huntington 1991). To do this, however, we have first to take into account the ways in which different historians have approached the writing of history. Democratization here is taken to be a process by
History The necessity of history. You need to have the sense of the history of the cinema even if you know it only imperfectly so that every shot you take, every cut you make has the sense of the presence of the past and that sense of the past is what constitutes it. This work, a work Godard calls ‘documentary’ has been lost or abandoned and the American cinema is particularly guilty of that. Alain Resnais’s Nuit et brouillard (1955) opens, in colour, on the ruins of Auschwitz and Majdanek. Colour is the sign of the present. The ruins are traces of a past, a
Communicating your research can feel like a new discovery. Many of the researchers we meet have found that their passion to engage and to discuss their subject matter has emerged as a mainly solo pursuit, perhaps inspired by a passionate colleague, favourite television programme or an exhibition visit that occurred by chance along the way. This can leave many researchers unaware that the communication of research to others and their engagement with it has been a long-standing issue within research professions. The history of communicating research is
Robert Mighall, A Geography of Victorian Gothic: Mapping Historys Nightmares; Andrew Smith, Gothic Radicalism: Literature, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis in the Nineteenth Century
9 Family history: history’s poor relation? Alison Light Family history is everywhere, not only on television shows like the BBC’s extremely popular Who Do You Think You Are? or in the newspapers, which frequently carry family stories and old photographs, but in the form of software, maps, books, magazines and vast events such as family history fairs, where gatherings of thousands of people share knowledge and buy things. It is a booming business across Europe, North America and Australia in particular, and has had a huge impact on information science and the
Chapter 5 . Genealogical history I n the age of Elizabeth I genealogy was not simply the province of antiquaries and heralds. It was broadly recognised that aristocrats and the gentry had a personal, legitimate interest in promoting and preserving their lineage, and this interest could significantly affect the political, financial and marital fortunes of a family. In 1570 a double marriage was proposed between Mary and Frances – daughters and co-heirs of Henry, lord Berkeley – and Sir Philip and Sir Robert Sidney – the nephews of the earls of Warwick and
T A C I T E A N H I S T O R Y 17 1 Tacitean history: Francis Bacon’s History of the Reign of King Henry VII On 30 April 1621, a ‘Confession and Humble Submission’ was read before the House of Lords. In this document, Sir Francis Bacon acknowledged that, as Lord High Chancellor, he had received bribes and was, therefore, ‘guilty of corruption’.1 The Lords responded with a harsh sentence: Bacon was given a fine of £40,000, imprisoned at the King’s pleasure, and barred from holding office or high employment in the state and from coming within twelve miles of
Chapter 6 . Didactic history O pening the preface to the Antiquities of Warwickshire Dugdale consciously placed his work within the didactic tradition of historical writing, by quoting from Raleigh’s History of the World: ‘It is History that hath given us Life in our Understanding since the World it self had Life and Beginning.’ He described his purpose to be ‘by setting before you the noble and eminent actions of your worthy ancestors, to incite the present and future ages to a virtuous imitation of them’. The work was a ‘Monumentall Pillar’, which like the
134 COMMERCE, FINANCE AND STATECRAFT 7 Jacobite history: Thomas Carte’s General History A more far-reaching critique both of Rapin’s History and Whiggish ideas of credit was developed by the Oxford historian Thomas Carte in the 1740s and 1750s.1 Carte was a diligent and able scholar, and the author of a series of well-documented historical works including a three-volume History and Life of James Duke of Ormonde (1735–36) and the four-volume General History of England (1747–55).2 He was also a Non-Juror and an active Jacobite conspirator. In the 1720s he
Introduction In the 1990s and early in the twenty-first century two apparently contradictory things happened to history. The number of students studying history in schools went down (though not the numbers studying it in universities), while in every other respect history was booming. History on the television, popular biographies and, perhaps above all, family history all reached unprecedented levels of interest. A number of theories have been put forward to account for these phenomena. Family history, for example, has been seen as a way of trying to connect