Download or read book Reflections on History and Historians written by Theodore S. Hamerow and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History as a field of learning is in a state of crisis. It has lost much of its influence in institutions of higher learning and its place in public esteem. Historians have, in large part, lost touch with the intelligent lay reader and with the undergraduate college student. History's value to society is being questioned. In this work, a distinguished historian views the profession to which he has been devoted for more than thirty years. Theodore S. Hamerow's learned observations will be welcomed by all historians and by those involved in the management of higher education, and should be required reading for all graduate students in history. Far from being a sentimental look at the past, Hamerow's work confronts the unpleasant reality of the present. History, he says flatly, is a discipline in retreat. The profession is in serious trouble and there are no signs that its problems will be resolved in the foreseeable future. After identifying the current crisis, Hamerow proceeds to trace the development of the profession over the last hundred years and to examine its characteristics in modern society. In this section of the book he shares some fascinating practical observations on the ways in which the profession operates. Hamerow explains why some historians rise to prominence while others do not. He also examines causes of the dissatisfactions that afflict many historians and their students. Hamerow also examines the way in which academic historians live their lives, as he expands on the daily realities that they face. He then explains how those realities have shaped scholarship and led to the "new history." The broad use of social science methods, he observes, has had the effect of isolating the new historians from traditional historians, indeed from one another. Couched in the arcane prose of machine-readable languages, says Hamerow, history has become inaccessible to the intelligent lay reader who had once read historical works with interest, understanding, and appreciation. In concluding his examination, Hamerow asks, "What is the use of history?" It has long been a favorite question asked by historians, but seldom one over which they agonized for very long. After considering various arguments for the usefulness of historical investigation, Hamerow offers his own justification. There are times, says Hamerow, when even the most spontaneous or instructive cultural pursuits need to be examined in the light of the purposes they serve and the goals they seek. Now might be a good time for all historians to take a long look at the direction their discipline has taken in the past century, at the functions it has come to perform, and at the serious dilemma it now faces. Hamerow is a steady and helpful guide to any such examination.
Download or read book Reflections on History written by Jacob Burckhardt and published by Liberty Fund. This book was released on 1979 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost alone among nineteenth-century historians, Jacob Burckhardt saw the totalitarian direction that history could take. This book (first published in English in 1943 as Force & Freedom) is a guide to the study & comprehension of historical processes. Burckhardt makes a clear distinction between the state & the voluntary activities of society. He focuses on the nature & reciprocal interactions of the state, religion & culture. Gottfried Dietze is a Professor in the Political Science Department at Johns Hopkins University.
Download or read book Scriptural Reflections on History written by K. J. Popma and published by WordBridge Publishing. This book was released on 2020-11-19 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: K. J. Popma, a teacher of classical languages and a special professor of Reformed philosophy at the universities of Groningen and Utrecht, wrote his book during the trying times of the Second World War. The work outlines a philosophy of history rooted in Scripture and takes the account provided by Scripture seriously, without eliminating its historical character, either by spiritualizing its message or by undercutting it through an appeal to science. It takes its cues from the Scriptural narrative: creation and fall, the tower of Babel, Abraham and Israel, Daniel’s Four Empires, and the principal division in world history, the coming of Christ. Popma’s fresh and challenging approach to history utilizes the perspective of the Calvinistic philosophy associated with Herman Dooyeweerd, but it does so in Popma’s unique and idiosyncratic way, and in a style that belies the learning that underlies it. Nor does one need to have any special acquaintance with the specifics of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy to profit from it. At the same time, the relation between history and theology is especially important – “the researcher who never took a peek in the workshop of theology will always be a bungler” (p. 85). "History is a unity, and a continuity—of the sacred and the secular, of the course of salvation history and secular history, of the here and the hereafter. Nor does it end at the resurrection from the dead. “Our earthly task continues, first in our task in heaven, presently in our task on the new earth. Thus, it is not true that our earthly task comes to an end. For heaven and earth belong together and our task never ends” (p. 116). So then, history is not something disconnected from eternity, but continues into eternity. There is a unity between heaven and earth, between culture here and now, and life in the renewed creation hereafter. The aim of this book is to point to the splendour of the structure that God has built, to history in its unity and course. He who learns to see something of that splendour will foster a burning interest for what has happened and is still happening and will happen. He will be afraid of nothing so much as the danger of shutting oneself up in a spiritual prison that makes it impossible to see the real history, even if such a prison displays the finest inscriptions over its entrance and is comfortably and even luxuriously furnished. Nor will he become discouraged when he discovers that history is full of injustice. For he knows that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be satisfied" (p. 133).
Download or read book Real History written by Martin Bunzl and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-06-20 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Real History is a fascinating and essential read for all those interested in a reconciliation of the debates about the methodology and study of the philosophy of history.
Download or read book Reflections on the History of Art written by Ernst Hans Gombrich and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1987-01-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays discuss Greek and Chineese art, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Dutch genre painting, Rubens, Rembrandt, art collecting, museums, and Freud's aesthetics
Download or read book The Powers of the Past written by Harvey J. Kaye and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Birth of a New Europe written by Theodore S. Hamerow and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2016-08-01 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars and the outbreak of the First World War, Europe underwent a transformation unparalleled in its history. No comparable degree of change had occurred on the Continent since the New Stone Age. Theodore Hamerow examines the innovations that challenged nineteenth-century Europe, using a perspective that transcends events that occurred within national boundaries. He brings together political, social, diplomatic, and national developments to demonstrate how they relate to the profound transformations brought about by the industrial revolution. Using a wealth of statistics and other documentation to buttress insightful generalizations, Hamerow broadly appraises the implications of the shift in Europe from an agricultural to an industrial society. Among the subjects he considers are the rise of the middle and working classes, the spread of literacy and the enfranchisement of the masses, the growth of urban centers of manufacture and trade, the acquisition of colonies, the spread of military technologies, and the changes in the functions of governments.
Download or read book The Purpose of the Past written by Gordon S. Wood and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-03-13 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An erudite scholar and an elegant writer, Gordon S. Wood has won both numerous awards and a broad readership since the 1969 publication of his widely acclaimed The Creation of the American Republic. With The Purpose of the Past, Wood has essentially created a history of American history, assessing the current state of history vis-à-vis the work of some of its most important scholars-doling out praise and scorn with equal measure. In this wise, passionate defense of history's ongoing necessity, Wood argues that we cannot make intelligent decisions about the future without understanding our past. Wood offers a master's insight into what history-at its best-can be and reflects on its evolving and essential role in our culture.
Download or read book Lake George Reflections written by Frank Leonbruno and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Beginning At Jerusalem written by Glenn W. Olsen and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2010-10-29 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly regarded historian and professor presents a sustained reflection on the meaning of the Church's life in time. Divided into five parts, each section takes up a period of Church history and considers how the developments in church history relate to the Church today. From doctrines to customs, Olsen examines both the theological and historical impact of each new development. Beginning with ancient Christianity, the author illustrates how both secularization and sacralization take place in history and how it corresponds to our own age. Taking the reader from late ancient and early medieval Christianity, to the full bloom of medieval scholasticism and scholarship, to the dawn of the Renaissance and the aggressively anti-religious time of the "Enlightenment", Olsen considers all aspects of every age. The final section is a discussion of the Church in our own time, confronting such problems as modernization and the relation of the Church to culture. Appendices expand on The Catechism of the Catholic Church's teaching on the relation between prayer and history.
Download or read book Reflections on history written by Jakob Christoph Burckhardt and published by . This book was released on 1943 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Reflections on American Indian History written by Albert L. Hurtado and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Insights into how history continues to influence contemporary Native life.
Download or read book Reflections on the History of Computers in Education written by Arthur Tatnall and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-05-05 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a collection of refereed invited papers on the history of computing in education from the 1970s to the mid-1990s presenting a social history of the introduction and early use of computers in schools. The 30 papers deal with the introduction of computer in schools in many countries around the world: Norway, South Africa, UK, Canada, Australia, USA, Finland, Chile, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Ireland, Israel and Poland. The authors are not professional historians but rather people who as teachers, students or researchers were involved in this history and they narrate their experiences from a personal perspective offering fascinating stories.
Download or read book Optimism in Politics written by Walter Laqueur and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-15 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new collection by Walter Laqueur, one of the most distinguished historians and political commentators of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, vividly brings to life his perspective on fifty years of political life. The essays in this volume deal with events ranging from more than seventy years ago to some that have not yet happened, but may in years to come. Laqueur divides his writings into five main areas: optimism in politics, the topic that unites this volume; Europe; the Arab Spring; Israel and Jewish affairs; and recollections of the past. This volume addresses an increasingly important question: How much optimism do we need in politics? Some neuroscientists believe that many of our assessments rest on an excess of optimism amounting to a dangerous bias. Another school of cognitive scientists sees the main danger in being influenced too much by negative conclusions. Although these competing perspectives have been only rarely investigated, Laqueur argues that such psychological factors play a decisive role in the assessment of political trends, and they should. Laqueur also reminds readers that there is a connection between writing history and commenting on current affairs, but it is not remotely as close and simple as often thought. The idea that the historian is somehow better qualified than others to interpret the present, let alone predict the future, is certainly not borne out by the evidence. Some great historians have been good and reliable political commentators, others have been miserable failures. Laqueur definitely falls in the former camp, as these reflections attest.
Download or read book Return to Essentials written by Geoffrey Rudolph Elton and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-08-22 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains the text of the three Cook Lectures, which review various current doubts and queries concerning the writing of reasonably unbiased history.
Download or read book The Kiss of Lamourette written by Robert Darnton and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1990 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about history, the media, and the history of the media.In four parts this book will go through how the past operates as an undercurrent in the present, analyze the operation of the media by specific case studies, outline a particular discipline; the history of the book, which provides a historical dimension to media studies, and lastly, to move outward from those considerations to a broad discussion of history itself and of history's neighbors within the human sciences.
Download or read book Toward Forever written by Tony McKenna and published by John Hunt Publishing. This book was released on 2020-03-27 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Toward Forever: Radical Reflections on History and Art is a diverse, colourful and eclectic set of essays of historical and cultural analyses. From the genesis of Islam as a social movement, to an account of Goya's art in the context of feudal absolutism and the Napoleonic wars, to The Da Vinci Code, and much more besides. McKenna is a classical Marxist not shy of addressing popular culture, past and present, works often ignored by other Marxist critics increasingly confined to Academia and its high-brow concerns.
