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History has always been more than just the past. It involves a relationship between past and present, perceived, on the one hand, as a temporal chain of events and, on the other, symbolically as an interpretation that gives meaning to these events through varying cultural orientations, charging it with norms and values, hopes and fears. And it is memory that links the present to the past and therefore has to be seen as the most fundamental procedure of the human mind that constitutes history: memory and historical thinking are the door of the human mind to experience. At the same time, it transforms the past into a meaningful and sense bearing part of the present and beyond. It is these complex interrelationships that are the focus of the contributors to this volume, among them such distinguished scholars as Paul Ricoeur, Johan Galtung, Eberhard Lämmert, and James E. Young. Full of profound insights into human society pat and present it is a book that not only historians but also philosophers and social scientists should engage with.
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Preface to the Series
Jörn Rüsen
Introduction: What does "Making Sense of History" mean?
Jörn Rüsen
PART I: MEANING
Chapter 1. Memory - Forgetting - History
Paul Ricoeur
Chapter 2. How Meaning Came into the World and What Became of It
Günter Dux
Chapter 3. Sense of History: What does it Mean? With an Outlook onto Reason and Senselessness
Jörn Rüsen
Chapter 4. "The Meaning of History": A Modern Construction and Notion?
Jörn Stückrath
Chapter 5. The Meaning of History: Enacting Sociocultural Code
Johan Galtung
Chapter 6. The Three Levels of "Sinnbildung" in Historical Writing
Frank R. Ankersmit
Chapter 7. The Reality of History
David Carr
Chapter 8. Language and Historical Experience
Frank R. Ankdersmit
PART II: REPRESENTATION
Chapter 9. Flights from History: Reinventing Tradition between the 18th and 19th Centuries
Aleida Assmann
Chapter 10. Memory and Identity: How Memory is Reconstructed after Catastrophic Events
Alessandro Cavalli
Chapter 11. The Material Presence of the Past: Reflections on the Visibility of History
Detlef Hoffmann
Chapter 12. Ruins: A Visual Expression of Historical Meaning
Moshe Barasch
Chapter 13. Three Versions of Wallentstein: Differences of Meaning Production between Historiography, Biography, and Novel
Eberhard Lämmert
Chapter 14. The Arts of Jewish Memory in a Postmodern Age
James E. Young
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index of Names
About the author
Jörn Rüsen was Professor of Modern History at the Universities of Bochum and Bielefeld for many years. From 1994 to 1997 he was the Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF). Since 1997 he has been President of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut), Essen.
Summary
History has always been more than just the past. It involves a relationship between past and present, perceived, on the one hand, as a temporal chain of events and, on the other, symbolically as an interpretation that gives meaning to these events through varying cultural orientations, charging it with norms and values, hopes and fears. And it is memory that links the present to the past and therefore has to be seen as the most fundamental procedure of the human mind that constitutes history: memory and historical thinking are the door of the human mind to experience. At the same time, it transforms the past into a meaningful and sense bearing part of the present and beyond. It is these complex interrelationships that are the focus of the contributors to this volume, among them such distinguished scholars as Paul Ricoeur, Johan Galtung, Eberhard Lämmert, and James E. Young. Full of profound insights into human society pat and present it is a book that not only historians but also philosophers and social scientists should engage with.
