Why Study History?


Book Description

Considering studying history at university? Wondering whether a history degree will get you a good job, and what you might earn? Want to know what it’s actually like to study history at degree level? This book tells you what you need to know. Studying any subject at degree level is an investment in the future that involves significant cost. Now more than ever, students and their parents need to weigh up the potential benefits of university courses. That’s where the Why Study series comes in. This series of books, aimed at students, parents and teachers, explains in practical terms the range and scope of an academic subject at university level and where it can lead in terms of careers or further study. Each book sets out to enthuse the reader about its subject and answer the crucial questions that a college prospectus does not.




The Meaning of History


Book Description




Logics of History


Book Description

While social scientists and historians have been exchanging ideas for a long time, they have never developed a proper dialogue about social theory. William H. Sewell Jr. observes that on questions of theory the communication has been mostly one way: from social science to history. Logics of History argues that both history and the social sciences have something crucial to offer each other. While historians do not think of themselves as theorists, they know something social scientists do not: how to think about the temporalities of social life. On the other hand, while social scientists’ treatments of temporality are usually clumsy, their theoretical sophistication and penchant for structural accounts of social life could offer much to historians. Renowned for his work at the crossroads of history, sociology, political science, and anthropology, Sewell argues that only by combining a more sophisticated understanding of historical time with a concern for larger theoretical questions can a satisfying social theory emerge. In Logics of History, he reveals the shape such an engagement could take, some of the topics it could illuminate, and how it might affect both sides of the disciplinary divide.




The Big Six Historical Thinking Concepts


Book Description

Authors Peter Seixas and Tom Morton provide a guide to bring powerful understandings of these six historical thinking concepts into the classroom through teaching strategies and model activities. Table of Contents Historical Significance Evidence Continuity and Change Cause and Consequence Historical Perspectives The Ethical Dimension The accompanying DVD-ROM includes: Modifiable Blackline Masters All graphics, photographs, and illustrations from the text Additional teaching support Order Information: All International Based Customers (School, University and Consumer): All US based customers please contact [email protected] All International customers (exception US and Asia) please contact Nelson.international@ne lson.com







Theory of the History Classroom


Book Description

This volume proposes a theory of history education in formal classroom settings. Specifically, it aims to outline how the particular setting of the classroom interacts with domain-specific processes of historical thinking. The theory rests on the notion that formal school education is a communicative and social system, while historical thinking occurs in the psychological system of a person's historical consciousness. In the complex interaction of these systems, historical thinking, emotions, communication, media and language are of particular importance. Drawing upon educational theory as well as the theory of history, this theory of the history classroom provides a framework as well as a solid foundation for future empirical research, both for developing research questions as well as for interpreting findings.







The Ends of History


Book Description

Why were the Victorians so passionate about "History"? How did this passion relate to another Victorian obsession – the "woman question"? In a brilliant and provocative study, Christina Crosby investigates the links between the Victorians’ fascination with "history" and with the nature of "women." Discussing both key novels and non-literary texts – Daniel Deronda and Hegel’s Philosophy of History; Henry Esmond and Macaulay’s History of England; Little Dorrit, Wilkie Collins’ The Frozen Deep, and Mayhew’s survey of "labour and the poor"; Villette, Patrick Fairburn’s The Typology of Scripture and Ruskin’s Modern Painters – she argues that the construction of middle-class Victorian "man" as the universal subject of history entailed the identification of "women" as those who are before, beyond, above, or below history. Crosby’s analysis raises a crucial question for today’s feminists – how can one read historically without replicating the problem of nineteenth century "history"? The book was first published in 1991.




Philosophy and Practice in Writing a History of Ancient Israel


Book Description

Philosophy and Practice in Writing a History of Ancient Israel elucidates and examines assumptions about history writing that current historians of ancient Israel and Judah employ. It is undertaken in the context of the conflict between so-called "minimalists" and "maximalists" within the discipline today. Though the use of the Bible as evidence is the focal point of the opposition of these two approaches, Moore shows that a number of related philosophical and practical concerns are telescoped in this issue, including concepts of Empiricism, Objectivity, Representation and Language, Subject, Explanation, Truth, and Evidence Evaluation and Use. Organized around these topics, Philosophy and Practice aims to situate the study of ancient Israel and Judah in the broader intellectual context of academic history in general and to provide insight into the formative assumptions of the current debate. It also aims to show that the central issue of the reliability of the Bible as evidence is surrounded by related issues that are equally important for understanding the past of ancient Israel and Judah and writing about it. Moore shows that ideas about objectivity in particular have a direct bearing on the evidentiary debate, which, in turn, affects what subjects and modes of explanations historians see as available to them. Moore argues that current historians of ancient Israel are beginning to work with a notion of historical truth that attempts to take into account the many contingencies for the concept and writing of history that twentieth-century discussions about history have introduced.




On the Concept of History


Book Description

On The Concept of History is a politics & social sciences essay written by German philosopher and social science critic Walter Benjamin. On The Concept of History is one of Walter Benjamin's best known, and most controversial works. The politics & social sciences essay is composed of twenty numbered paragraphs in which Benjamin uses poetic and scientific analogies to present a critique of historicism. Walter Benjamin wrote the brief essay shortly before attempting to escape from Vichy France, where French collaborationist government officials were handing over Jewish refugees like Walter Benjamin to the Nazi Gestapo. Walter Benjamin completed On The Concept of History before fleeing to Spain where he unfortunately committed suicide. Benjamin's work is often required textbook reading in various subjects such as humanities, philosophy, and politics & social sciences.