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Across the globe, history has gone public. With the rise of the internet, family historians are now delving into archives continents apart. Activists look into and recreate the past to promote social justice or environmental causes. Dark and difficult pasts are confronted at sites of commemoration. Artists draw on memory and the past to study the human condition and make meaning in the present. As a result of this democratisation of history, public history movements have now risen to prominence.
This groundbreaking edited collection takes a comprehensive look at public history throughout the world. Divided into three sections - Background, Definitions and Issues; Approaches and Methods; and Sites of Public History - it contextualises public history in eleven different countries, explores the main research skills and methods of the discipline and illustrates public history research with a variety of global case studies.
What is Public History Globally? provides an in-depth examination of the ways in which ordinary people become active participants in historical processes and it will be an invaluable resource for advance undergraduates and postgraduates studying public history, museology and heritage studies.
List of contents
List of Figures
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
The Public Turn: History Today,
Paul Ashton and Alex TrapeznikSection 1: Background, Definitions and Issues1. Public History in Australia: History in Place,
Lisa Murray and Mark Dunn2. Public History in Britain: Repossessing the Past,
Mark Donnelly3. Public History in Canada: Service or Public Service?,
Mike Dove and Michelle Hamilton4. Public History in China: Past Making in the Present,
Li Na5. Public History in Germany: Opening New Spaces,
Thorsten Logge and Nico Nolden6. Public History in India: Towards a People's Past,
Indira Chowdhury and Srijan Mandal7. Public History in Indonesia: The Old Disorder?,
Paul Ashton, Kresno Brahmantyo and Jaya Keaney8. Public History in New Zealand: From Treaty to Te Papa,
Alex Trapeznik9. Public History in Scandinavia: Uses of the Past,
Anne Brædder10. Public History in South Africa: A Tool for Recovery,
Julie Wells11. Public History in the USA: Institutionalizing Old Practices,
Thomas CauvinSection 2: Approaches and Methods12. First Encounters: Approaching the Public Past,
Meg Foster13. Affective Afterlives: Public History, Archaeology and the Material Turn,
Denis Byrne14. The Archaeological Archive: Material Traces and Recovered Histories,
Tracy Ireland15. Archives and Public History: A Developing Partnership,
Jeannette Bastian and Stephanie Krauss16. 'Speak, Memory': Current Issues in Oral and Public History,
Paula Hamilton17. Who do you Think You Are?:
The Family in Public History, Anna Green
18. Love Thy Neighbour: Local and Community history,
Tanya Evans19. Grass-Roots Activism, Heritage and Cultural Landscape: A Community Case Study,
Keir Reeves and Jacqueline Z. Wilson20. Past Continuous: Digital public history and social media,
Serge NoiretSection 3: Sites of Public History21. Remembering Dark Pasts and Horrific Places: Sites of Conscience,
Paul Ashton and Jacqueline Z. Wilson22. #Fake History: The State of Heritage Interpretation,
Sue Hodges23. 'The air still rings with the excitement of Spanish life': Ybor City and the Cuban Cigar,
Christopher J. Castañeda24. Forgetting and Remembering in Bhopal: Architects as Agents of Memory,
Amritha Ballal and Moulshri JoshiBibliography
Index
About the author
Paul Ashton is an Adjunct at the Australian Centre for Public History at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia, which he co-founded, the Centre for Applied History at Macquarie University and the Centre for Creative and Cultural Research at the University of Canberra. His publications include Once Upon a time: Australian Writers on Using the Past and Australian History Now. He is also founding co-editor of the journal Public History Review.Alex Trapeznik is Associate Professor of History at the University of Otago, New Zealand. His research focuses on historical and cultural heritage management issues in New Zealand and globally. He is the author ofCommon Ground? Heritage and Public Places in New Zealand (2000), a key text that helped establish public history as a discipline in New Zealand.
Summary
Across the globe, history has gone public. With the rise of the internet, family historians are now delving into archives continents apart. Activists look into and recreate the past to promote social justice or environmental causes. Dark and difficult pasts are confronted at sites of commemoration. Artists draw on memory and the past to study the human condition and make meaning in the present. As a result of this democratisation of history, public history movements have now risen to prominence.
This groundbreaking edited collection takes a comprehensive look at public history throughout the world. Divided into three sections - Background, Definitions and Issues; Approaches and Methods; and Sites of Public History - it contextualises public history in eleven different countries, explores the main research skills and methods of the discipline and illustrates public history research with a variety of global case studies.
What is Public History Globally? provides an in-depth examination of the ways in which ordinary people become active participants in historical processes and it will be an invaluable resource for advance undergraduates and postgraduates studying public history, museology and heritage studies.
Foreword
An examination of the theory and practice of public history, as well as its evolution, in a global context.
Additional text
The interrogative title poses an important question. It is answered in wonderfully diverse essays: eleven map the terrain of public history in distinct national contexts; nine examine particular methods and approaches, many across contexts; and four focus on specific sites with striking comparative or trans-national implications. This triangulation complements the editors’ intriguing and suggestive subtitle—‘working with the past in the present”: the collection as a whole is considerably more than the sum of the individually impressive parts.
