What Is History For?

History is a battlefield, but accounts of history can be fabricated. Robert Gildea suggests that the more people who understand good history, the more likely history is to triumph over myth. He sees positive signs in public history, citizen historians, and community projects.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 182 pages
Publication date: 26 March 2024
Publisher: Bristol University Press

“History”, suggests Robert Gildea, “is a battlefield.” Questions of power, rights, identity, and nationhood always have an ancient and modern historical dimension, and countries still go to war over their interpretation of history. Yet accounts of history are just as prone to fabrication as fake news, so how can we tell good history from bad? How can history be critical, learning from the past and righting wrongs, rather than divisive, such as riding roughshod over the rights of others? In this passionately argued book, Gildea suggests that the more people who really understand what good history entails, the more likely history is to triumph over myth. He sees positive signs in public history, citizen historians, and community projects, among other developments. And he debunks claims that ‘you cannot rewrite history, arguing that good history that’s attuned to its times must be rewritten time and again.

“History”, suggests Robert Gildea, “is a battlefield.” Questions of power, rights, identity, and nationhood always have an ancient and modern historical dimension, and countries still go to war over their interpretation of history. Yet accounts of history are just as prone to fabrication as fake news, so how can we tell good history from bad? How can history be critical, learning from the past and righting wrongs, rather than divisive, such as riding roughshod over the rights of others? In this passionately argued book, Gildea suggests that the more people who really understand what good history entails, the more likely history is to triumph over myth. He sees positive signs in public history, citizen historians, and community projects, among other developments. And he debunks claims that ‘you cannot rewrite history, arguing that good history that’s attuned to its times must be rewritten time and again.

Weight: 174g
Dimension: 168 x 352 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781529230512