Artful history : a practical anthology / Aaron Sachs, John Demos.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Demos, John, Editor.

Sachs, Aaron, Editor.

Series:

New directions in narrative history.

New Directions in Narrative History

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Historiography.

History--Methodology.

History.

Narration (Rhetoric).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (304 pages).

Place of Publication:

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, [2020]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

A collection of memorable, stirring, and eloquent historical essays, designed to help any historian write more artfully Is there any reason that serious historical scholarship cannot receive literary expression? Isn't it possible that the most committed empiricists and postmodernists might both achieve better results by thinking of writing as a craft, rather than just a means of packaging research? This book compiles some of the most compelling efforts to make history writing eloquent, stirring, and memorable, in the realms of both practice and theory. The authors included here prove the great potential of approaching the writing of history as a literary art, even as they retain a commitment to rigorous scholarship. The collection shows how historians can aspire to find a form that matches and enhances their substance, nudging readers toward what historian John Clive called the "spell that lingers in the memory and is conducive not just to reading but to rereading." With selections from: Jonathan Spence, Simon Schama, Saidiya Hartman, Wendy Warren, Jill Lepore, Louis Masur, Jane Kamensky, and John Demos, among others.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Jonathan Spence, from The Death of Woman Wang (1978)

Robert Rosenstone, from Mirror in the Shrine (1988)

Simon Schama, from Dead Certainties (1991)

Stella Tillyard, from Aristocrats (1994)

Saidiya Hartman, "Lose Your Mother" (2007)

Wendy Warren, " 'The Cause of Her Grief': The Rape of a Slave in Early New England" (2007)

Stephen Berry, "The Historian as Death Investigator" (2011)

Paul A. Kramer, "The Importance of Being Turbaned" (2011)

Craig Harline, from Conversions (2011)

Amy Reading, "Benjamin Franklin's Disciples" (2012)

Jill Lepore, "All About Erections" (2012)

Jonathan Holloway, from Jim Crow Wisdom (2013)

James Goodman, "For the Love of Stories" (1998)

Louis P. Masur, "What It Will Take to Turn Historians into Writers" (2001)

Aaron Sachs, "Letters to a Tenured Historian: History as Creative Nonfi ction-or Maybe Even Poetry" (2010)

Jane Kamensky, "Novelties: A Historian's Field Notes from Fiction" (2011)

John Demos, "History in the Head, History from the Heart: A Personal Minifesto" (2016)

Contributors

Credits

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 06. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

0-300-25204-8

OCLC:

1139918529