Manifestos for History

Written by some of the world’s leading historians and theorists of history, Manifestos for History draws together a series of manifestos that address the question of what kinds of histories we ought to be considering and making in and for the twenty-first century. With a foreword by Joanna Bourke and an afterword by Hayden White, these manifestos – critical, innovative, reflexive, inspirational – are absolutely essential reading, not just for those embarking on the study of history, but for all those who would think seriously about ‘the nature of history’ in its present and possible future forms. This collection establishes a benchmark for all future considerations upon the discourse of history.

Table of contents

Notes on contributors.

Foreword Joanna Bourke

1. Space for the Bird to Fly

2. History-Writing as Critique

3. Manifesto for a History of the Media

4. The Closed Space of Choice: A Manifesto on the Future of History

5.‘Humani Nil Alienum’: The Quest for ‘Human Nature'

6. History and the Politics of Recognition

7. The Gift of the Past: Towards a Critical History

8. Performing Cross-Culturally

9. Historical Fiction and the Future of Academic History

10. Alternate Worlds and Invented Communities: History and Historical Consciousness in the Age of Interactive Media

11. Being an Improper Historian

12. Resisting Apocalypse and Rethinking History

13. Manifesto for an Analytical Political History

14. Historiographical Criticism: A Manifesto

15. The Past of the Future: From the Foreign to the Undiscovered Country. Afterword