Dr Hilda Kean is former dean and director of public history at Ruskin college, Oxford where she established the first MA in Public History in Britain. Her books include London stories. Personal lives, public histories (2004) and People and their pasts. Public history today with Paul Ashton (2009)

Dr Paul Martin was tutor in public history at Ruskin college, Oxford 1997-2012. He is currently a distance learning tutor with the School of Museum Studies, Leicester University. His books include Popular Collecting and the Everyday Self (1999) and The Trade Union Badge (2002).

Introduction Hilda Kean Part I: Introduction: The Past In The Present: Who Is Making History? Paul Martin 1. Theatres of Memory Raphael Samuel 2. The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen 3. Heritage from below: class, social protest and resistance Iain Robertson 4. Use and Abuse of Australian History Graeme Davison 5. Taking History to Heart, The Power of the Past in Building Social Movements James Green 6. Making History. The Historian and Uses of the Past Jorma Kalela 7. Forty years of conflict: state, Church and spontaneous representation of massacres and murder in Guatemala Matthew J Taylor and Michael K Steinberg Part II: Introduction: Materials and approaches to making history Hilda Kean 1. Evocative Objects:Things We Think With Sherry Turkle 2. London Stories. Personal Lives, Public Histories Hilda Kean 3. The Trade Union Badge: Material Culture In Action Paul Martin 4. The future of preserving the past Daniel Cohen 5. Critical Cloth Deborah Dean and Rhiannon Williams 6. History at the Crossroads. Australians and the Past Paul Ashton and Paula Hamilton Part III: Introduction: Introduction Intangible and Tangible History Paul Martin 1. The Cult of Happiness. Nianhua, Art, and History in Rural North China James A. Flath 2. 'Under the same roof': separate stories of Long Kesh /the Maze Cahal McLaughlin 3. Town: creating and curating the District Six Museum Sandra Prosalendis, Jennifer Marot, Crain Soudien and Anwah Nagia 4. Golconda Our Voices our Lives Lawrence Scott 5. Something Borrowed, Something New: History and the Waitangi tribunal Michael Belgrave 6. Creating Memories Building Identities. The politics of memory in the black Atlantic Alan Rice. Further Reading.