An annotated bibliography compiled by Mary Elizabeth McLain
Seminar in Archives - "Future Archives"
The University of Texas at Austin
Fundamentals for the Future
Barraclough, Geoffrey. Main Trends in History. Expanded and updated by Michael Burns. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1977, 1991.
In his first edition, Barraclough explored almost a century of historiographic directions, from the development of methods and theoretical assumptions at the close of the nineteenth century, through the ramifications of Marxist models, to the broadening of the historian's scope and vision in the 1960's and 70's. He surveyed key trends in Europe and North America, and used reports on worldwide historiographic trends compiled by the National Commission of Unesco, the Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies, and other organizations to include scholarship from the Soviet Union, China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Africa, and Latin America. Burns's epilogue examines new issues, such as quantification, anthropological history, and psychohistory. He focuses his examination on scholars based in the United States and Europe, but includes those with global interests in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Burns portends that many of today's trends will develop into the historians main arsenal of research in the future.
Hobsbawm, Eric. On History. New York: The New Press, 1997.
After a 50 year career as an historian, Eric Hobsbawm maintains that history is employed and successful in a congruous intellectual project: shaping an understanding of how the world came to be the way it is today. This collection of essays comprises his reflections on his subject. He writes on the uses, and abuses of history in society and politics. Hobsbawm also discusses history's value to other disciplines. He includes surveys and critical assessments of historical trends and fashions. And he explores the central problems all historians confront. Hobsbawm also emphasizes the historian's role in the prediction of the future, stating that all prediction rests on the inferences about the future from what has happened in the past.
Arnold, John, Kate Davies, and Simon Ditchfield, eds. History and Heritage: Consuming the Past in Contemporary Culture. Shaftesbury, Dorset: Donhead Publishing, Ltd., 1998.
History and Heritage provides a representative sample of over 50 academic papers given at the University of York's 1996 Consuming the Past conference. The organizers of the conference, the editors of this volume, seek to launch a new field of study: heritage studies as applied history. By doing so, they hope that academic historians will begin constructive reflection on their working practices and consider their differences from "non-academic" historians, and encourage a historicization of heritage itself. To promote their view, heritage scholars maintain that the extensive scope of heritage studies offers opportunities for the development of new and unusual teaching and learning methods for the humanities. To support their rationale for the development of a new field of historical study, they assert that history, heritage, and "the past" loom prominently over contemporary culture and are implicit in our discussions of nationality and identity. The collected essays share a concern with the appropriation of historical narratives and historical identities. They address the ways society endorses and contests the meanings of images, stories, objects, and memories, and the representation, preservation, and interpretation of history and heritage by professionals and the public. Topics covered by the contributors include monuments and museums, the iconicity of Princess Diana, the representation of history in popular films such as Braveheart, and the function of history in popular reading practices.
Cohen, Ralph and Michael S. Roth. History and . . . : Histories within the Human Sciences. Charlottesville, VA: The University of Virginia Press, 1995.
Contributors to this book presented their essays at a conference on history and the humanities held at Scripps College Humanities Institute. At the conference, scholars discussed the important uses and abuses of history in the human sciences. The editors state that while developments in the human sciences have displaced history as a focus of academic study, they do not satisfy the need for "a sense of the past." Scholars of the humanities and human sciences are at a critical moment of understanding the importance of history in their research. However, scholars of other disciplines often fear that by embracing history, they will become annexed into another discipline, or forced into a story that is not theirs. The editors assert that the potential inclusiveness of history is its great claim on academia, and scholarly links between fields form the basis for debating our culture. The contributors' essays examine the ways history enlightens aspects of contemporary culture and our attempts to understand it, particularly the fine arts, literature, philosophy, and anthropology.
Mazlish, Bruce, and Ralph Buultjens, eds. Conceptualizing Global History. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993.
We now live in an age of globalization. The editors and contributors to this collection of essays declare that this new era of human interaction and cooperation demands a new historical paradigm: global history. With the expansion of human exploration and utilization of space (i.e. satellites), nuclear and environmental threats, and multinational corporations, comes a need to develop a new perspective to guide our understanding of our world. Contributors examine previous attempts to form a vision of the global history field, global public opinion as an ethical force, global communications, and the implications of global history. Trailblazers in global history anticipate that no single paradigm will develop but offer several directions that are currently developing. They see society's challenge of creating institutions other than the nation-state, such as international organizations and corporations, as a possible objective for the synthesis in the field. Several of the new global historians emphasize its interdisciplinary nature and suggest that to develop a viable global history, it should be team researched by scholars from many disciplines.
Rawski, Thomas G., et al. Economics and the Historian. Berkeley, CA: The University of California Press, 1996.
Rawski and his colleagues attempt to deepen the exchange of ideas between economists and historians. Their purpose is to show historians how to apply the core ideas and methods of economics to a wide range of historical issues. They argue that historians who do not consider the field of economics in their research will overlook factors that affect every historical situation and maintain that historians who ignore economic approaches of inquiry risk losing important lines of explanation. Because of the abstract nature of economic models, historians often draw back from applying economic theories to their work. Economics and the Historian provides examples of how standard theories of economics extent the reach of historical source materials by revealing connections between elements of market systems. The book also introduces fundamental economic concepts, vocabulary, bibliography, and analysis that historians can begin to apply to their research.
Shaw, David Gary and Philip Pomper, eds. The Return of Science: Evolutionary Ideas and History. Vol. 38, History and Theory: Studies in the Philosophy of History. Middletown, CT: Weslyan University Press, 1999.
In recent years, newspapers and the intellectual press have informed the public on scientific discoveries that bear on culture and history, but often, science's voice in the dialogue of civilization is muffled and frequently held suspect, particularly by those who recall that scientific theory has been used in the past to separate people. In the field of history, scholars cautioned against treating science as central to understanding the full scope of human life. Evolutionary science, often associated with Spencer's Social Darwinism, has had an especially bad reputation within history. The authors collected in this volume of History and Theory believe that a reconciliation between historians and evolutionary ideas and findings is in the offing. This set of articles is meant to serve as a prologue to interdisciplinary work that will bridge the gap in understanding. The contributors agree that historians need to know how evolutionary discoveries and models can help them comprehend human history. Many of the authors focus on the "historic" potential of sciences, such as paleontology, biology, mathematics, physics, and genetics. However, several of the contributors believe it is possible to carry the story of evolution into the domain of cultural change, citing that evolution commands culture as well as nature.
The Philosophical Future of History
Burns, Timothy, ed. After History? Francis Fukuyama and his Critics. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1994.
In this volume of collected essays, scholars reflect upon Fukuyama's essay "The End of History?" within the context of the theory of modernity. They address the question of the satisfactory character of modernity and its wisdom in political philosophy. They expand Fukuyama's premise and conclude that the deepest longings of human beings can be satisfied by ourselves and by the things of this world. The acceptance or rejection of modernity is the acceptance or rejection of a certain form of rationalism. "The End of History?" is the culmination of modern, systematic rationalism. The modernists essayists who agree with Fukuyama believe that the individual finds satisfaction in the execution of public functions determined by the modern constitutional state and in the human recognition or esteem this brings. The contributors agree with Fukuyama that history ended with the advent of the modern, atheistic, rational self-consciousness.
Fukuyama, Francis. "The End of History?" The National Interest, no. 16, 1989.
With the end of the Cold War, the collapse of communism, and the decline of socialism, an historical era has come to an end, and we strain to understand the world that will replace it. According to Fukuyama, human history has been characterized by conflicts over fundamental principles, the rivalry of the monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy; the struggles between church and state, Protestantism, and Catholicism; the conflict among fascism, communism, and capitalism. Now within the West, there stands no rival principle to liberal democracy, no comprehensive ideological alternative. Fukuyama holds that the Western ideals of freedom and equality are the ultimate values of human political life. One cannot understand the course of modern history in terms of scientific and economic progress. The individual desires only to be recognized as an autonomous person, a value that requires human recognition and points to liberal democracy. With liberal democracy's triumph, it can be said that reason and history have reached their destination.
Metzler, Arthur, Jerry Weinberger, and M. Richard Zinman, eds. History and the Idea of Progress. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995.
The book attempts to address and clarify some of the issues and questions raised by "The End of History," by Francis Fukuyama, which some viewed as intellectual sensationalism and Western triumphantilism. To begin, Fukuyama restates his position that the one true human interest, recognition as an autonomous person, has been achieved through the victory of liberal democracy, and that human historical development can go no further. Contributors first approach Fukuyama's idea through an examination of the philosophical concepts of progress and history espoused by Machiavelli, Kant, Nietzsche, and Spengler. Then, scholars reflect on the practical meaning of progress and conclude that the differences that have divided humanity since the beginning of time will perpetually continue. Finally, several authors speculate on the future of political liberalism. The editors emphasize that the range of opinion of the essays in the volume show that the "end of history" controversy captures our millennial cultural mood and our ominous sense that "something" is over and that civilization is searching for its new direction.
Technology and its Uses in Historical Research
Harvey, Charles, and Jon Press. Databases in Historical Research: Theory, Methods, and Applications. London: MacMillan Press, Ltd., 1996.
Data gathering, organization, sorting, and searching are tasks routinely carried out by historians. Each is facilitated through the use of powerful computers and database-management software. Rich collections of data can be brought together to serve the needs of many scholars and many projects over generations. The authors contend that the use of databases in historical research will increase to the point when a basic knowledge of database systems will be a fundamental skill for professionally trained historians. The proliferation of database construction and research will not need historians to construct new research paradigms, but merely provide a technology that will still support traditional methods of research and analysis. Harvey and Press's book introduces historians to various database systems that will be of interest and value to scholars undertaking database-centered historical research projects. It discusses the nature and process of historical research in the context in which computers may assist. Chapters focus on database concepts, terminology, and methods, software {Oracle and Microsoft Access}, and design and construction. The authors also present case studies of database projects to help researchers avoid mistakes and realize the full potential of available resources.
Mawdsley, Evan and Thomas Munck. Computing for Historians: An Introductory Guide. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993.
The authors, both economic historians, believe that the revolution in information technology applies as much to historical information as any other type. Their book is intended to introduce historians to the ways the proliferation of computer technology can aid in dealing with sources and presenting findings. The major theme of the book is the use of databases for the storage and analysis of historical sources. However, the authors maintain they are not "cliometricians," and state that computers should be used to enhance traditional methodologies.
Trinkle, Dennis A. Writing, Teaching, and Researching History in the Electronic Age: Historians and Computers. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe Publishing, 1998.
In his introduction, editor Dennis Trinkle states that although historians study the past, they are not Luddites, and have long stood at the forefront of the humanities in embracing electronic innovations. Social history developed directly as a result of the invention of programmable computers that could manipulate large, complex groups of data. When computers entered households and schools in the late 1970's, historians developed improvements in their teaching, research, and communication methods. Today, with the proliferation of the Internet and the World Wide Web, historians are moving rapidly to capitalize on their possibilities and benefits. New technologies are facilitating exciting new ways to practice history. The essays in this book examine the prospects introduced by computer technologies and raise discussion about their consequences and limitations. The issues covered include scholarly communication and publishing, multimedia teaching, and uses of technology in historical research. While most of the contributors see the value of computers in historical research as promising, others warn that increasing dependence on electronic communication threatens the position of the written word in education and could possibly relegate education to a superfluous role in American culture.
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