In recent times there has been recognition of the growing influence of cultural theory on historical writing. Foucault, Bourdieu, Butler and Spivak are just some of the thinkers whose ideas have been taken up and deployed by historians. What are these ideas and where do they come from? How have cultural theorists thought about 'history'? And how have historians applied theoretical insights to enhance their own understanding of events in the past? This book provides a wide-ranging and authoritative guide to the often vexed and controversial relationship between history and contemporary theory. It analyses the concepts that concern both theorists and historians, such as power, identity, modernity and postcolonialism, and offers a critical evaluation of them from an historical standpoint. Written in an accessible manner, History and Cultural Theory gives historians and students an invaluable summary of the impact of cultural theory on historiography over the last twenty years, and indicates the likely directions of the subject in the future.

Product Description: A Historiography of the Modern Social Sciences includes essays on the ways in which the histories of history, psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics, and political science have been written since the Second World War. Bringing together chapters written by the leading historians of each discipline establishes significant parallels and contrasts and makes the case for a comparative interdisciplinary historiography...read more

Product Description: Revitalizing the Classics is a lively introductory text that relates classical social theories to contemporary social events. This updated definition of the classics avoids the Eurocentrism and androcentrism of many textbooks of social theory by including both non-European and women social thinkers...read more

Product Description: The act of remaking one's history into a heritage, a conscientiously crafted narrative placed over the past, is a thriving industry in almost every postcolonial culture. This is surprising, given the tainted role of heritage in so much of colonialism's history...read more

Product Description: Kierkegaard has long been known as a philosopher and theologian, but his contributions to psychology, anthropology and sociology have also made an important impact on these fields. In many of the works of his complex authorship, Kierkegaard presents his intriguing and unique vision of the nature and mental life of human beings individually and collectively...read more

If history matters for understanding key development outcomes then surely historians should be active contributors to the debates informing these understandings. This volume integrates, for the first time, contributions from ten leading historians and seven policy advisors around the central development issues of social protection, public health, public education and natural resource management. How did certain ideas, and not others, gain traction in shaping particular policy responses? How did the content and effectiveness of these responses vary across different countries, and indeed within them? Achieving this is not merely a matter of seeking to 'know more' about specific times, places and issues, but recognising the distinctive ways in which historians rigorously assemble, analyse and interpret diverse forms of evidence. This book will appeal to students and scholars in development studies, history, international relations, politics and geography as well as policy makers and those working for or studying NGOs.

Product Description: The Evolution of the Social Sciences charts the development of the main social sciences―religion, history, philosophy, law, sociology, anthropology, and economics―through an examination of the lives and works of each discipline's key historical figures...read more

Product Description: While social scientists and historians have been exchanging ideas for a long time, they have never developed a proper dialogue about social theory. William H. Sewell Jr. observes that on questions of theory the communication has been mostly one way: from social science to history...read more

The French historian Marc Bloch has often been praised for his interdisciplinary approach. This book demonstrates the importance of both Vidalian geography and Durkheimian sociology for Bloch and the significant, but often overlooked, differences between his approach and theirs. In contrast to much other work on Bloch, Professor Friedman highlights the intellectual and institutional contexts of Bloch's works, arguing that only by a careful examination of the debates in which he was involved can one begin to come to terms with the nature of his contribution.

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Product Description: Divided into two parts, this book examines the train of social theory from the 19th century, through to the `organization of modernity', in relation to ideas of social planning, and as contributors to the `rationalistic revolution' of the `golden age' of capitalism in the 1950s and 60s...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Making the historical past come alive for students is a goal of most social studies teachers. Many youth find the people and events and movements portrayed in their textbooks to be wooden, remote, and empty. For history to become alive to them, students seek personal meanings as they use knowledge of context and ponder details. Currently most school history programs emphasize knowledge acquisition at the expense of these personal constructions of meaning. This new collection of essays provides practical assistance in the search for a more robust teaching of history and the social studies. Contributors to this volume offer insights from the discipline of history about the nature of empathy and the necessity of examining perspectives on the past. On the basis of recent classroom research, they suggest tested guides to more robust teaching. They also employ examples from classroom practice about how teachers can facilitate students' consideration of multiple and sometimes conflicting perspectives when seeking historical meanings. The contributors insist that with experienced history and social studies teachers, students can learn many historical details and, with the use of empathy, develop deepened and textured interpretations of the history that they study. (view table of contents)

Product Description: First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Product Description: Social Theory: Its Origins, History, and Contemporary Relevance analyzes the tradition of social theory in terms of its origins and changes in kind of societies. Rossides provides a full discussion of the sociohistorical environments that generated Western social theory with a focus on the contemporary modern world...read more

Product Description: Drawing on the embattled concept of "experience" as a valuable way of exploring and reappraising a number of key debates that have come out of feminism, critical hermeneutics, histiography, and cultural and social theory, Michael Pickering evaluates the ways in which the concept has been used in the past and reconfigures it for future applications...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Charts the origins, growth, and consolidation of sociology, linguistics, economics, anthropology, and psychology (view table of contents)