Frank Ankersmit

In this book, the noted intellectual historian Frank Ankersmit provides a systematic account of the problems of reference, truth, and meaning in historical writing. He works from the conviction that the historicist account of historical writing, associated primarily with Leopold von Ranke and Wilhelm von Humboldt, is essentially correct but that its original idealist and romanticist idiom needs to be translated into more modern terms. Rehabilitating historicism for the contemporary philosophy of history, he argues, "reveals the basic truths about the nature of the past itself, how we relate to it, and how we make sense of the past in historical writing." At the heart of Ankersmit's project is a sharp distinction between interpretation and representation. The historical text, he holds, is first and foremost a representation of some part of the past, not an interpretation. The book's central chapters address the concept of historical representation from the perspectives of reference, truth, and meaning. Ankersmit then goes on to discuss the possible role of experience in the history writing, which leads directly to a consideration of subjectivity and ethics in the historian's practice. Ankersmit concludes with a chapter on political history, which he maintains is the "basis and condition of all other variants of historical writing." Ankersmit's rehabilitation of historicism is a powerfully original and provocative contribution to the debate about the nature of historical writing.

Meaning, Truth, and Reference in Historical Representation

Laura Mulvey

Daniel Pick

Tomáš Jirsa

Martin Elbel

Jiří Lach

History no longer belongs only to historians, but is woven into the fabric and discourse of daily life. This fresh and wide-ranging survey explores how new media and new historiographic approaches are dramatically expanding what we understand by “history” today. Controversy about the aims and limits of historical analysis has raged ever since the rise of postmodern history in the 1970s. But these debates have rarely affected the understanding of history in Central and Eastern Europe. The volume confirms the crucial importance of audiovisual and mass media, from film to television and radio to comics, but does not exclude literary scholars and art historians who are also rethinking their methods, taking note of their new consumers. If history formerly appeared to be a one-way transmission of expertise, it is increasingly a dynamic engagement between researchers and audiences.

New Ways of Representing the Past

Where Is History Today?

Hans Kellner

Ewa Domanska

Produced in honor of White's eightieth birthday, Re-Figuring Hayden White testifies to the lasting importance of White's innovative work, which firmly reintegrates historical studies with literature and the humanities. The book is a major reconsideration of the historian's contributions and influence by an international group of leading scholars from a variety of disciplines. Individual essays address the key concepts of White's intellectual career, including tropes, narrative, figuralism, and the historical sublime while exploring the place of White's work in the philosophy of history, postmodernism, and ethics. They also discuss his role as historian and teacher and apply his ideas to specific historical events.

Re-Figuring Hayden White

Ewa Domańska

Frank Ankersmit

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