Experiments in Rethinking History

History is a narrative discourse, full of unfinished stories. This collection of innovative and experimental pieces of historical writing shows there are fascinating and important new ways of thinking and writing about the past. The pieces illustrate the performative and fictive nature of history, that point to new ways of thinking about the past.
Fourteen engaging and thought-provoking pieces lead the reader to a deeper understanding of some of the possible responses to the question 'What is history?', and even suggest that this traditional question might be better replaced with a new question, 'How shall I engage with the past today?'. The collection includes subjects as diverse as a lynching in South Carolina, the life of an eighteenth century French Marquise and a journey to a string of Pacific islands. The pieces show what is possible in doing history, and demonstrate how other factors, such as the impact of emotions, the feeling of 'otherness', the confining character of boundaries, authorial subjectivity, and even a sense of boredom with conventional ways of doing history, intrude on historical practice.
As well as being a compelling read, the book includes a thorough two-part introduction on theory and practice, as well as further introductory matter at the start of each section to allow the reader to engage fully with the theoretical aspects of each part of the book. This book should be read by all those with an interest in history and its theory.

From two of the world’s leading postmodern historians, this thoroughly original collection of articles allows students and researchers to understand and learn important new ways of thinking and writing about the past. This book includes a thorough two-part introduction on theory and practice as well as introductory material in each section that allows the reader to fully engage with the theoretical aspects of the book. It provides a deeper understanding ofhow to engage with the past today. Fourteen thought-provoking experimental pieces of historical writing tackle subjects as diverse as lynching in South Carolina, the life of an eighteenth-century Marquise, and a journey to a string of Pacific islands, and demonstrates how little-considered factors such as the impact of emotions, authorial subjectivity, the confining character of boundaries, and even a sense of boredom with conventional historical writing practices, can intrude on historical practice This text works as a Reader companion alongside the Routledge best-seller Rethinking History and provides students with an innovative, engaging and easy-to-read research tool to enhance all history-related course studies.

Alun Munslow is Professor of History and Historical Theory at Staffordshire University. He is the author of Deconstructing History, The Routledge Companion to Historical Studies and most recently The New History and is the UK editor of Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice.Robert A. Rosenstone, Professor of History at the California Institute of Technology, is author of six books, including Romantic Revolutionary: A Biogrpahy of John Reed, Mirror in the Shrine: American Encounters with Meiji Japan, Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History and King of Odessa. Currently he serves as Founding Editor of Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice.