Who Owns History?: Rethinking the Past in a Changing World - Softcover

Foner, Eric

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0809097052 ISBN 13: 9780809097050

Publisher: Hill and Wang, 2003

Synopsis

"Who Owns History? testifies to Eric Foner's lifelong personal commitment to writing histories that advance the struggle for racial equality and economic justice." ―David Glassberg, The Sunday Star-Ledger

History has become a matter of public controversy, as Americans clash over such things as museum presentations, the flying of the Confederate flag, and reparations for slavery. So whose history is being written? Who owns it?

Eric Foner answers these and other questions about the historian's relationship to the world of the past and future in this provocative, even controversial, study of the reasons we care about history―or should.

About this title

From the Publisher

A thought-provoking new book from one of America's finest historians.

"History," wrote James Baldwin, "does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do."

Rarely has Baldwin's insight been more forcefully confirmed than during the past few decades. History has become a matter of public controversy, as Americans clash over such things as museum presentations, the flying of the Confederate flag, or reparations for slavery. So whose history is being written? Who owns it?

In Who Owns History?, Eric Foner proposes his answer to these and other questions about the historian's relationship to the world of the past and future. He reconsiders his own earlier ideas and those of the pathbreaking Richard Hofstadter. He also examines international changes during the past two decades -- globalization, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of apartheid in South Africa -- and their effects on historical consciousness. He concludes with considerations of the enduring, but often misunderstood, legacies of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. This is a provocative, even controversial, study of the reasons we care about history -- or should.

Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University. He is the author of many highly acclaimed works in American history, notably The Story of American Freedom and Reconstruction. He lives in New York City.

About the Author

Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University. He is the author of many highly acclaimed works in American history, notably The Story of American Freedom and Reconstruction. In 2011, he won the Pulitzer Prize for History, the Bancroft Prize, and the Lincoln Prize for The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. He lives in New York City.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hill and Wang
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0809097052
• ISBN 13: 9780809097050
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256