History


Book Description

"No one writes more thoughtfully or interestingly about the history of the profession than Higham does." -- Laurence Veysey, University of California, Santa Cruz. "A classic in the field, probably the best overall picture of American historiography we have." -- Richard L. Bushman, University of Delaware.










The Third Wave of Historical Scholarship on Nigeria


Book Description

This festschrift in honor of Professor Ayodeji Olukoju, one of Nigeria’s brightest historians, brings together scholarship representative of the third wave of historical scholarship on Nigeria. Olukoju, a pioneering historian of Nigerian maritime history, also produced significant revisionist scholarship in the areas of economic, urban, and infrastructure history. The contributions in this volume epitomize the groundbreaking directions of his career; they are marked by a search for new explanations and venture into uncharted terrain in Nigerian history. Aside from its critical engagement of Olukoju’s impressive scholarship, this volume presents chapters on such underresearched aspects of Nigerian history as sexuality, children and youth, crime, memory, and HIV/AIDS. It offers historical explanations of a host of development challenges confronting Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, and resilient reinterpretations of the place of history in nation building. The contributors, pioneering experts in their various subfields, bring their research and teaching experience to the fore and deploy neglected data as they unfold topics that shed light on Nigeria, its peoples, and cultures. They show that history, both as a daily practice and as an academic endeavor, remains vital as Africans seek solutions to the continent’s critical development challenges.




A History of Chinese Classical Scholarship, Volume I, Zhou


Book Description

The first volume of David M. Honey's comprehensive history of Chinese thought offers a close study of Confucius, that tradition's proto-classicist. This opening volume examines Confucius traditions that largely formed the views of later classicists, who regarded him as their profession's patron saint. Honey's survey begins by examining how these views informed the Chinese classicists' own identities as textual critics and interpreters, all dedicated to self-cultivation for government service. It focuses on Confucius's methods as a proto-classical master and teacher, and on the media in which he worked, including the spoken word and written texts. As Honey explains, Confucius's immediate motivations were twofold: the moral development of himself and his disciples and the ritual application of the lessons from the classics. His instruction occurred in ritualized settings in the form of a question and answer catechism between master and disciples. This pedagogical approach will be analyzed through the interpretive paradigm of "performative ritual," borrowed from recent studies of Greek classical drama. The volume concludes with a detailed treatment of a trio of Confucius's disciples who were most prominent in transmitting his teachings, and with chapters on his intellectual inheritors, Mencius and Xunzi.




Diplomas and Diplomacy


Book Description

The first published work to chart the history of the Marshall Scholarship, this book details the origins of the Scholarship in the British Foreign Office and subsequently traces the award's evolution through the careers and narratives of a range of Scholars. It further explores the complex and dynamic interaction between education and diplomacy through the broader lens of Anglo-American relations by way of extensive primary-source document research, interviews, and statistical analysis.




Virtual Orientalism


Book Description

Saffron-robed monks and long-haired gurus have become familiar characters on the American popular culture scene. Jane Iwamura examines the contemporary fascination with Eastern spirituality and provides a cultural history of the representation of Asian religions in American mass media. Encounters with monks, gurus, bhikkhus, sages, sifus, healers, and masters from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds and religious traditions provided initial engagements with Asian spiritual traditions. Virtual Orientalism shows the evolution of these interactions, from direct engagements with specific individuals to mediated relations with a conventionalized icon: the Oriental Monk. Visually and psychically compelling, the Oriental Monk becomes for Americans a ''figure of translation''--a convenient symbol for alternative spiritualities and modes of being. Through the figure of the solitary Monk, who generously and purposefully shares his wisdom with the West, Asian religiosity is made manageable-psychologically, socially, and politically--for popular culture consumption. Iwamura's insightful study shows that though popular engagement with Asian religions in the United States has increased, the fact that much of this has taken virtual form makes stereotypical constructions of "the spiritual East" obdurate and especially difficult to challenge.




The History of History


Book Description

"This study concentrates on the politics of history-writing, offering a nuanced account of how historical thinking and the discipline of history began to assume importance in colonial and independent India. Along with discussions of the role of historians in the dispute over the now-destroyed Babri Masjid and the so-called 'saffronization' of history textbooks, the book also engages with Subaltern Studies, and provides insights into iconic debates over Shivaji, Aurangzeb, beef-eating, and the relationship between history and the nation state." "With a new Postscript that takes into account recent developments, this highly readable account of the rise of history will appeal to students and scholars of postcolonial and culture studies, historians, social scientists, and informed general readers interested in the role of history in the public domain."--BOOK JACKET.




A Companion to the History of the Book


Book Description

A COMPANION TO THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK A COMPANION TO THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK Edited by Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose “As a stimulating overview of the multidimensional present state of the field, the Companion has no peer.” Choice “If you want to understand how cultures come into being, endure, and change, then you need to come to terms with the rich and often surprising history Of the book ... Eliot and Rose have done a fine job. Their volume can be heartily recommended. “ Adrian Johns, Technology and Culture From the early Sumerian clay tablet through to the emergence of the electronic text, this Companion provides a continuous and coherent account of the history of the book. A team of expert contributors draws on the latest research in order to offer a cogent, transcontinental narrative. Many of them use illustrative examples and case studies of well-known texts, conveying the excitement surrounding this rapidly developing field. The Companion is organized around four distinct approaches to the history of the book. First, it introduces the variety of methods used by book historians and allied specialists, from the long-established discipline of bibliography to newer IT-based approaches. Next, it provides a broad chronological survey of the forms and content of texts. The third section situates the book in the context of text culture as a whole, while the final section addresses broader issues, such as literacy, copyright, and the future of the book. Contributors to this volume: Michael Albin, Martin Andrews, Rob Banham, Megan L Benton, Michelle P. Brown, Marie-Frangoise Cachin, Hortensia Calvo, Charles Chadwyck-Healey, M. T. Clanchy, Stephen Colclough, Patricia Crain, J. S. Edgren, Simon Eliot, John Feather, David Finkelstein, David Greetham, Robert A. Gross, Deana Heath, Lotte Hellinga, T. H. Howard-Hill, Peter Kornicki, Beth Luey, Paul Luna, Russell L. Martin Ill, Jean-Yves Mollier, Angus Phillips, Eleanor Robson, Cornelia Roemer, Jonathan Rose, Emile G. L Schrijver, David J. Shaw, Graham Shaw, Claire Squires, Rietje van Vliet, James Wald, Rowan Watson, Alexis Weedon, Adriaan van der Weel, Wayne A. Wiegand, Eva Hemmungs Wirtén.




Why Literary Periods Mattered


Book Description

In the mid-nineteenth century, the study of English literature began to be divided into courses that surveyed discrete "periods." Since that time, scholars' definitions of literature and their rationales for teaching it have changed radically. But the periodized structure of the curriculum has remained oddly unshaken, as if the exercise of contrasting one literary period with another has an importance that transcends the content of any individual course. Why Literary Periods Mattered explains how historical contrast became central to literary study, and why it remained institutionally central in spite of critical controversy about literature itself. Organizing literary history around contrast rather than causal continuity helped literature departments separate themselves from departments of history. But critics' long reliance on a rhetoric of contrasted movements and fateful turns has produced important blind spots in the discipline. In the twenty-first century, Underwood argues, literary study may need digital technology in particular to develop new methods of reasoning about gradual, continuous change.