Zum Hauptinhalt springen Zur Suche springen Zur Hauptnavigation springen
Beschreibung

What is history? What are historians doing, when we create our histories? The need for answers is more urgent than ever. We live in an era when history is often rejected or ignored, and when all teachers of history confront formidable challenges. In the culture of screen capitalism and social media, historical knowledge is evaded in an expanding present-minded consciousness. How can history be defended, and what is it that we are defending?
This book argues that history is a mode of thinking, a form of imaginative reasoning with its own informal logic. In non-technical language and using examples from important works of history, the book defines core elements in historical thinking. These include contingency, complexity, temporality, parts and wholes, consilience, perspectives, analogy, and abduction. These elements are subsumed into the concept of imaginative reasoning. The overall argument echoes the work of hermeneutic philosophers. History is a disciplined imagination, tempered and empowered by its forms of reasoning. It embraces ethical imperatives that the historian has a duty to declare. Equipped with such understanding, historians may answer the many rejections of history and secure its place in our shared futures.

Winner of this year's Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles: [...]

What is history? What are historians doing, when we create our histories? The need for answers is more urgent than ever. We live in an era when history is often rejected or ignored, and when all teachers of history confront formidable challenges. In the culture of screen capitalism and social media, historical knowledge is evaded in an expanding present-minded consciousness. How can history be defended, and what is it that we are defending?
This book argues that history is a mode of thinking, a form of imaginative reasoning with its own informal logic. In non-technical language and using examples from important works of history, the book defines core elements in historical thinking. These include contingency, complexity, temporality, parts and wholes, consilience, perspectives, analogy, and abduction. These elements are subsumed into the concept of imaginative reasoning. The overall argument echoes the work of hermeneutic philosophers. History is a disciplined imagination, tempered and empowered by its forms of reasoning. It embraces ethical imperatives that the historian has a duty to declare. Equipped with such understanding, historians may answer the many rejections of history and secure its place in our shared futures.

Winner of this year's Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles: [...]

Über den Autor

Eric W. Sager
, University of Victoria, Canada.

Details
Erscheinungsjahr: 2025
Fachbereich: Allgemeines
Genre: Geisteswissenschaften, Geschichte, Kunst, Musik
Rubrik: Geisteswissenschaften
Thema: Lexika
Medium: Buch
Reihe: The Politics of Historical Thinking
Inhalt: VII
160 S.
ISBN-13: 9783111563275
ISBN-10: 3111563278
Sprache: Englisch
Einband: Gebunden
Autor: Sager, Eric William
Hersteller: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
Verantwortliche Person für die EU: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, De Gruyter GmbH, Genthiner Str. 13, D-10785 Berlin, productsafety@degruyterbrill.com
Maße: 234 x 161 x 15 mm
Von/Mit: Eric William Sager
Erscheinungsdatum: 27.01.2025
Gewicht: 0,365 kg
Artikel-ID: 130234770

Ähnliche Produkte