The central themes of this volume are that culture is historically conditioned and history culturally conditioned. The production of history is now clearly recognized as a cultural practice, an invention in the present, as much as a representation and interpretation of the past.Both theoretical and practical in its approach, this book explores the development of cultural history, and its impact on current teaching.
- Part 1 examines the ways in which conceptions of historical meaning have been challenged, via developments in a range of disciplines (including literary and linguistic theory, history, sociology, anthropology, media and cultural studies).
- Part 2 looks at four case studies drawn from America and Britain: the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the music of the Beatles, the social documentary of George Orwell, and the political polemics of nineteenth-century British radical women.