Writing Contemporary History brings together some of the world's most pre-eminent historians to discuss the core issues confronting students of contemporary history today. Tackling ten key questions of current historiographical debate, each chapter sets in parallel and in opposition the contributions of two scholars. Questions include: Does gender history have a future? When does colonial history end? What is cultural history now about? This volume takes to heart the central rationale of the Writing History series, namely to combine theoretical reflection with the practice of producing historical texts. It introduces the reader to a variety of important theoretical approaches in the field of contemporary history writing and asks how these approaches have shaped historical writing in this important sub-discipline. Writing Contemporary History an invaluable introduction to the central debates that have shaped the field of contemporary history.
Robert Gildea is Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford. He is the author of The Past in French History (New Haven and London, Yale University Press), Marianne in chains. In Search of the German Occupation, 1940--1944 (London, Macmillan, 2002) and Children of the Revolution. The French, 1799--1914 (London, Allen Lane, 2008). He is currently directing an international research project on militants in Europe in 1965--75 entitled 'Around 1968: Activism, Networks, Trajectories'.
Anne Simonin is Senior Researcher at the French National Scientific Center, appointed at the Maison Française d'Oxford for the last three years. Her recent publications include: "L'écrivain, l'éditeur et les mauvaises moeurs" in Boris Gobille and alii (ed), Mai Juin 68, Paris, Éditions de l'Atelier, 2008, 411-427; "Le droit au mensonge: comment dire le vrai pendant la guerre d'Algérie", in Luc Boltanski and alii (ed), Affaires, scandales et grandes causes. De Socrate à Pinochet, Paris, Stock, 2007, 249-277. Her L'Honneur dans la République. Une histoire de l'indignité de la Révolution française aux années cinquante will be published by Grasset in 2008.
Heiko Feldner is Senior Lecturer in Modern German History at Cardiff University, UK.
Heiko Feldner is co-director of the Centre for Ideology Critique and Žižek Studies at Cardiff University, UK. He is also the General Editor of Bloomsbury's Writing History series on historiography and historical theory, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, London. A former lecturer in the departments of political economy and history at the University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, he has written several books, including Zizek: Beyond Foucault (with F. Vighi, Palgrave 2007).
Kevin Passmore is Professor of History at Cardiff University, UK.
Stefan Berger is Professor of Social History and Director of the Institute of Social Movements and the House for the History of the Ruhr at the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany.
He is the author of numerous books, including
Nationalizing the Past (2015) and
Germany: Inventing the Nation (2004) and the editor of
A Companion to Nineteenth-Century Europe: 1789-1914 (2009). He is, along with Kevin Passmore and Heiko Feldner, one of the Series Editors for Bloomsbury's successful student book series,
Writing History.
