History from below : between democratisation and populism / edited by Brigitta Bernet, Lutz Raphael, and Benjamin Zachariah.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Bernet, Brigitta, editor.

Raphael, Lutz, 1955- editor.

Zachariah, Benjamin, 1972- editor.

Series:

Politics of historical thinking ; v. 6.

The politics of historical thinking ; volume 6 2625-0055

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Historiography--Political aspects.

Historiography.

Democratization.

History--Political aspects.

History.

Populism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Place of Publication:

Berlin ; Boston : De Gruyter Oldenbourg, [2025]

Summary:

What we know as history from below has long been considered a more democratic form of history-writing and research than forms of history that have counted, sometimes by default, as elite, and therefore by implication elitist. But history from below also has a tendency towards populism: an emphasis on authenticity, on voices uncontaminated by elite narratives, and a focus on the indigenous. Apart from its having a long-standing problem of finding sources to 'give voice' to the underrepresented, the question as to who can write about (and therefore represent) the people below, and a possible focus, in consequence, on themes of blood, soil, and the Volk. This volume explores, over nine essays and an introductory thematic essay, these tensions and dichotomies. The purpose is to bring to the foreground a long-standing danger of celebrating voices from below, perhaps uncritically at times, and therefore also of a romanticisation of those voices.

Contents:

The upside-down world turned upside down again? / Brigitta Bernet, Lutz Raphael, Benjamin Zachariah

History from below and the populist temptation: nationalism, indigenism and authenticity / Benjamin Zachariah

National and regional varieties

Microhistory and micropolitics

The political background to a new historiographical approach / Brigitta Bernet

Barfußhistoriker and geschichtswerkstätten - history from below in West Germany in the late 1970s and the 1980s / Etta Grotrian

Indigenous history from below?

Problems and perspectives from the Pacific / Dario Di Rosa

Horizontality and decolonisation of knowledge: doing oral history in Latin America / Olaf Kaltmeier

Case studies

Jerusalem's history from below - a history of personal and historiographical transitions / Menachem Klein

Art "from below": activating socially engaged art at a site-in-conflict - the Israeli-Palestinian case / Irit Carmon Popper

Regimes at play: rethinking games, agency, and power relations under the Portuguese Estado Novo / Yannick Langkeek

Violence during the transition "from below" in South Africa / Franziska Rueedi.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Online resource; title from PDF title page (De Gruyter Brill, viewed May 8, 2026).

Other Format:

Print version: History from below.

ISBN:

9783111522470

3111522474

9783111522180

3111522180

OCLC:

1526232203

Publisher Number:

CIPO000245829

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license