Memory and History: Understanding Memory as Source and Subject

by Tumblety; Joan

• ISBN13: 9780415677127
• ISBN10: 0415677122
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2013-05-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

How does the historian approach memory and how do historians use different sources to analyze how history and memory interact and impact on each other? Memory and History, explores the different aspects of the study of history and memory. Divided into three parts the book covers life-stories: gender, class, trauma and working with 'memory'. Part Two focuses on 'Collective memory', memorialisation and commemoration. And lastly in Part Three from the individual to collective memory and the combination of the two. Each chapter looks at a set of key historical and historiographical questions through research-based case studies: How does engaging with 'memory' as either source or subject help to illuminate the past? What are the theoretical, ethical and/or methodological challenges that are encountered by historians engaging with 'memory' in this way, and how might they be managed? How can the reading of a particular set of sources illuminate both of these questions? The chapters cover a diverse range of approaches and subjects including oral history, memorialisation and commemoration, visual cultures and photography, autobiographical fiction and ethnic relations to the individual and collective memories of war veterans. Collectively this book addresses a wide range of primary source material beyond oral testimony photography, monuments, memoir and autobiographical writing, fiction, art and woodcuttings, 'everyday' and 'exotic' cultural artefacts, journalism, political polemic, the law and witness testimony. Memory and Historywill be essential reading for students of history and memory, it provides an accessible guide to the historical study of memory through a focus on varied source materials.