Fashioning History Current Practices and Principles [Paperback]

This book offers historians and aspiring historians a learned, absorbing, and comprehensive overview of current fashions of method, interpretation, and meaning in the context of postmodernism that has washed over the historical profession in the last two decades.PART I: CONSTRUING THE PAST AS HISTORY: PROCESSES AND PRESUPPOSITIONS Historical Method(s): From Evidence to Facts Historical Synthesis: From Statements to Histories PART II: COMPARING HISTORIES: FORMS, FUNCTIONS, FACTUALITY, AND THE BIGGER PICTURE Texts as Archives and Histories Things in and as Exhibits, Museums, and Historic Sites Films as Historical Representations and Resources Afterword: The History Effect and Representations of the Past

Berkhofer s approach illuminates . . . he offers a theoretical and methodological rationale for the current tendency to bring public and academic history together in fruitful conversations about the representations of the past. - The Journal of American History

In his latest book, the distinguished historian of Native Americans Robert F. Berkhofer Jr. continues his previous explorations of theoretical issues underlying the practice of history writing with a very systematic attempt to account for what is happening when historians tell their tales. It is a very valuable book for diverse constituencies. - The Historian

Fashioning History offers professional and aspiring historians a learned and absorbing overview of historical research and writing in the context of postmodern methods. Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr. provides the reader with indispensable background, discusses the products of history - admirably construed to include texts, material culture, and film - and argues that social and cultural history must contend with postmodernism without taking it too far. His advocacy of a middle path will make this book a timely and invaluable contribution for years to come. - Martha Hodes, author of The Sea Captain s Wife: A True SlSH