Twilight of history

General Information

Uniform Title
Crépuscule de l'histoire.
Author/Creator
Sand, Shlomo, author.
Language
English.
Published
London ; New York : Verso, 2017.
Physical Description
xxvii, 276 pages ; 24 cm.

Contents/Summary

Summary
"The acclaimed and controversial historian turns his critical gaze on the writing of history today. Drawing on his four decades as a professional historian, Shlomo Sand interrogates the academic discipline of history, whose origin lay in the need for a national ideology. In the last few decades, traditional history has begun to fragment, yet only to give rise to a new role of historians as priests of official memory. Working in Israel has sharpened Sand's perspective, since the role of history as national myth is particularly salient in a country where the Bible is treated as a history book. He asks such questions as: Is every historical narrative ideologically marked? Do political requirements and state power weigh down inordinately on historical research and teaching? And, in such conditions, can there be a morally neutral and 'scientific' truth? Despite his trenchant criticism of academic history, Sand would still like to believe that the past can be understood without myth, and sees pointers for this in the work of Weber and Sorel"--Provided by publisher.

Subjects

Subject
History > Philosophy.
Historiography > Philosophy.
Israel > History > Philosophy.
Israel > Historiography > Philosophy.

Bibliographic Information

Responsibility
Shlomo Sand ; translated by David Fernbach.
Note
"First published as Crépuscule de l'histoire, Editions Flammarion, 2015"--Title page verso.
Content
Preface: Studying History to Free Ourselves from It -- Undoing the Myth of Origins -- Escape from Politics? -- Probing the Truth of the Past -- Abandoning National Time.
ISBN
9781786630223

Holdings

Item Type Current Location Collection Call Number Volume Info Shelving Location Public Note
BookOSA Archivum LibraryReference collection901 SANReference-

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