Must We Divide History Into Periods?

Must We Divide History Into Periods? PDF Author: Jacques Le Goff
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023154040X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
We have long thought of the Renaissance as a luminous era that marked a decisive break with the past, but the idea of the Renaissance as a distinct period arose only during the nineteenth century. Though the view of the Middle Ages as a dark age of unreason has softened somewhat, we still locate the advent of modern rationality in the Italian thought and culture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Jacques Le Goff pleads for a strikingly different view. In this, his last book, he argues persuasively that many of the innovations we associate with the Renaissance have medieval roots, and that many of the most deplorable aspects of medieval society continued to flourish during the Renaissance. We should instead view Western civilization as undergoing several "renaissances" following the fall of Rome, over the course of a long Middle Ages that lasted until the mid-eighteenth century. While it is indeed necessary to divide history into periods, Le Goff maintains, the meaningful continuities of human development only become clear when historians adopt a long perspective. Genuine revolutions—the shifts that signal the end of one period and the beginning of the next—are much rarer than we think.

Must We Divide History Into Periods?

Must We Divide History Into Periods? PDF Author: Jacques Le Goff
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023154040X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 181

Get Book Here

Book Description
We have long thought of the Renaissance as a luminous era that marked a decisive break with the past, but the idea of the Renaissance as a distinct period arose only during the nineteenth century. Though the view of the Middle Ages as a dark age of unreason has softened somewhat, we still locate the advent of modern rationality in the Italian thought and culture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Jacques Le Goff pleads for a strikingly different view. In this, his last book, he argues persuasively that many of the innovations we associate with the Renaissance have medieval roots, and that many of the most deplorable aspects of medieval society continued to flourish during the Renaissance. We should instead view Western civilization as undergoing several "renaissances" following the fall of Rome, over the course of a long Middle Ages that lasted until the mid-eighteenth century. While it is indeed necessary to divide history into periods, Le Goff maintains, the meaningful continuities of human development only become clear when historians adopt a long perspective. Genuine revolutions—the shifts that signal the end of one period and the beginning of the next—are much rarer than we think.

Must We Divide History Into Periods?

Must We Divide History Into Periods? PDF Author: Jacques Le Goff
Publisher: European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism
ISBN: 9780231173001
Category : Historiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Jacques Le Goff argues that many of the innovations we associate with the Renaissance have medieval roots, and that many of the most deplorable aspects of medieval society continued to flourish during the Renaissance. While it is indeed necessary to divide history into periods, the meaningful continuities of human development only become clear when historians adopt a long perspective.

Constructing the Past

Constructing the Past PDF Author: Jacques Le Goff
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521277825
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
This book presents a selection of ten significant contributions of essays to French historiography.

The History of British India

The History of British India PDF Author: James Mill
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hindus
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description


Rethinking Period Boundaries

Rethinking Period Boundaries PDF Author: Lucian George
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110632373
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
Periodization is an ever-present feature of the grammar of history-writing. As with all grammatical rules, the order it imposes can structure but also stifle historical interpretations. Though few historians consider their period boundaries as anything more than useful guidelines, heuristic artifice all too easily congeals into immovable structure, blinkering the historical gaze. In this cross-disciplinary volume, an international group of historians and cultural scholars considers different ways in which accepted period boundaries in modern European history and cultural studies can be challenged and rethought. Alongside a theoretical introduction and epilogue, the volume contains seven case studies exploring hitherto under-researched continuities and discontinuities in the social, cultural, intellectual, literary, labour and art history of 19th- and 20th-century Europe, with a particular focus on the continent’s East. Topics covered include French anti-communism, peasant memories of serfdom, cosmopolitan art in a nationalist age, the communist takeover of Poland, Russian literary history, and national day traditions in East-Central Europe. To problematize period boundaries, the chapters in this volume adopt the perspective of social groups that standard periodization schemes have ignored; shine a light on "awkward" actors who have appeared out of step with canonical understandings of their period; consider how historical actors themselves divide up history and how this informs historical practice; and explore the difficulties that the non-synchronicity of different historical processes can pose for periodization.

Historical Imagination

Historical Imagination PDF Author: David J. Staley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100033614X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Historical Imagination examines the threshold between what historians consider to be proper, imagination-free history and the malpractice of excessive imagination, asking where the boundary between the two sits and the limits of permitted imagination for the historian. We use "imagination" to refer to a mental skill that encompasses two different tasks: the reconstruction of previously experienced parts of the world and the creation of new objects and experiences with no direct connection to the actual world. In history, imagination means using the mind's eye to picture both the actual and inactual at the same time. All historical works employ at least some creative imagination, but an excess is considered "too much". Under what circumstances are historians permitted to cross this boundary into creative imagination and how far can they go? Supporting theory with relatable examples, Staley shows how historical works are a complex combination of mimetic and creative imagination and offers a heuristic for assessing this ratio in any work of history. Setting out complex theoretical concepts in an accessible and understandable manner and encouraging the reader to consider both the nature and limits of historical imagination, this is an ideal volume for students and scholars of the philosophy of history.

Making Time

Making Time PDF Author: Gavin Lucas
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000373568
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
Making Time grapples with a range of issues that have crystallized in the wake of 15 years of discussion on time in archaeology, since the author's seminal volume The Archaeology of Time, synthesizing them for a new generation of scholars. The general understanding of time held by both archaeologists and non-archaeologists is often very simple: a linear notion where time flows along a single path from the past into the future. This book sets out to complicate this image, to draw out the key problems and issues with time that impact archaeological interpretation. Using concrete examples drawn from different periods and places, the book challenges the reader to think again. Ultimately, the book will suggest that if we want to understand what archaeological time is, then we need to accept that things do not exist in time, they make time. The crucial question then becomes: what kinds of time do archaeological materialities produce? Written for upper level undergraduates and researchers in archaeology, the book is also accessible to non-academics with an interest in the topic. The book is relevant for cognate disciplines, especially history, heritage studies and philosophy.

The Beginnings of Islamic Law

The Beginnings of Islamic Law PDF Author: Lena Salaymeh
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107133025
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This is a major and innovative contribution to our understanding of the historical unfolding of Islamic law. Scrutinizing its historical contexts, Salaymeh proposes that Islamic law is a continuous intermingling of innovation and tradition. The book's interdisciplinary approach provides accessible explanations and translations of complex materials and ideas.

What is Early Modern History?

What is Early Modern History? PDF Author: Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 150954058X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 115

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Book Description
What is Early Modern History? offers a concise guide to investigations of the era from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries and an entry-point to larger questions about how we divide and organize the past and how the discipline of history has evolved. Merry Wiesner-Hanks showcases the new research and innovative methods that have altered our understanding of this fascinating period. She examines various subfields and approaches in early modern history, and the marks of modernity that scholars have highlighted in these, from individualism to the Little Ice Age. Moving beyond Europe, she surveys the growth of the Atlantic World and global history, exploring key topics such as the Columbian Exchange, the slave trade, cultural interactions and blending, and the environment. She also considers popular and public representations of the early modern period, which are often how students – and others – first become curious. Elegantly written and passionately argued, What is Early Modern History? provides an essential invitation to the field for both students and scholars.

History without Chronology

History without Chronology PDF Author: Stefan Tanaka
Publisher: Lever Press
ISBN: 1643150030
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
Although numerous disciplines recognize multiple ways of conceptualizing time, Stefan Tanaka argues that scholars still overwhelmingly operate on chronological and linear Newtonian or classical time that emerged during the Enlightenment. This short, approachable book implores the humanities and humanistic social sciences to actively embrace the richness of different times that are evident in non-modern societies and have become common in several scientific fields throughout the twentieth century. Tanaka first offers a history of chronology by showing how the social structures built on clocks and calendars gained material expression. Tanaka then proposes that we can move away from this chronology by considering how contemporary scientific understandings of time might be adapted to reconceive the present and pasts. This opens up a conversation that allows for the possibility of other ways to know about and re-present pasts. A multiplicity of times will help us broaden the historical horizon by embracing the heterogeneity of our lives and world via rethinking the complex interaction between stability, repetition, and change. This history without chronology also allows for incorporating the affordances of digital media.