Authoring the Past: Writing and Rethinking History

Please explain why you think about and write history as you do?

Collecting together the responses to this question from 15 of the world’s foremost historians and theorists, Authoring the Past represents a powerful reflection on and intervention in the historiographical field.

Edited by Alun Munslow and presented in concise digestible essays, the collection covers a broad range of contemporary interests and ideas and offers a rich set of reasoned alternative thoughts on our cultural engagement with times gone by. Emerging from an intensely fertile period of historical thought and practice, Authoring the Past examines the variety of approaches to the discipline that have taken shape during this time and suggests possible future ways of thinking about and interacting with the past. It provides a unique insight into recent debates on the nature and purpose of history and demonstrates that when diverse metaphysical and aesthetic choices are made, the nature of the representation of the past becomes a matter of legitimate dispute. Students, scholars and practitioners of history will find it a stimulating and invaluable resource.

Alun Munslow is a founding and UK editor of Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice. His recent publications include Narrative and History (2007) and The Future of History (2010).