De/Constructing Western History

Readings

Buy at Amazon Hegel, G. W. F. Reason in History: A General Introduction to the Philosophy of History. Translated by Robert S. Hartman. Prentice Hall, 1997. ISBN: 9780023513206.

Buy at Amazon Revel, Jacques, and Lynn Hunt. Introduction in Histories: French Constructions of the Past. New Press, 1998, pp. 1-63. ISBN: 9781565844353.

Buy at Amazon Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. "An Unthinkable History: The Haitian Revolution as a Non-Event." Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Beacon, 1997, pp. 70-107, 167-176. ISBN: 9780807043110.

For fun, look at visual representations of time in Archibald, Sasha, and Daniel Rosenberg. "A Timeline of Timelines." Cabinet 13 (Spring 2004).

Also study Chronique du monde depuis la création, et des rois de France et d'Angleterre, jusqu'à l'an 1461. [Chronicle of the world since the Creation, and the kings of France and England, through the year 1461.] MS Typ 41. Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Questions

Describe two or three characteristics of Hegel's view of history that you found provocative (or irritating). Is it possible to write Hegelian history at the outset of the twenty-first century?

Partial Bibliography

Buy at Amazon Hunt, Lynn. The New Cultural History. University of California Press, 1989. ISBN: 9780520064294.

Buy at Amazon Palmer, Brian D. Descent into Discourse: The Reification of Language and the Writing of Social History. Temple University Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780877227205.

Buy at Amazon Kelley, Donald. Versions of History from Antiquity to the Enlightenment. Yale University Press, 1991. ISBN: 9780300047769.

Buy at Amazon Burke, Peter. New Perspectives on Historical Writing. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780271021171.

Buy at Amazon Appleby, Joyce, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob. Telling the Truth About History. W. W. Norton, 1995. ISBN: 9780393312867.

Buy at Amazon Revel, Jacques, and Lynn Hunt. Histories: French Constructions of the Past. Vol. 1 of Postwar French Thought. The New Press, 1998. ISBN: 9781565844353.

Buy at Amazon Molho, Anthony, and Gordon S. Wood. Imagined Histories: American Historians Interpret the Past. Princeton University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780691058115.

Buy at Amazon Novick, Peter. That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession. Cambridge University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780521357456.

Buy at Amazon Bonnell, Victoria, and Lynn Hunt. Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture. University of California Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780520216792.

Buy at Amazon Kramer, Lloyd, and Sarah Maza. A Companion to Western Historical Thought. Blackwell, 2006. ISBN: 9781405149617.

Buy at Amazon Downs, Laura Lee, and Stéphane Gerson. Why France? American Historians Reflect on an Enduring Fascination. Cornell University Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780801475702.

Buy at Amazon Grafton, Anthony. What Was History? The Art of History in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780521697149.