History: An Introduction to Theory, Method and Practice by Peter Claus & John Marriott

Author:Peter Claus & John Marriott [Claus, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781317409861
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2017-04-07T04:00:00+00:00

POSTSCRIPT

Although it had tended to defy definition, cultural history has flourished recently and now occupies a special place within the practice of history. Its rise has in part been built on the belated recognition that the terrain of culture is not an incidental sideshow to the economic and political; it actually exercises a profound influence on the nature and course of societal change, and struggles over the legitimacy of culture have often determined the course of that change. Evidence for the new confidence of cultural history comes from the attention now devoted to topics such as consumption, food, play, ritual, manners and fashion which previously would have been thought inconsequential.

If anything brings this field together it is the reliance on cultural theory, virtually all of which derives from associated disciplines. Thus, for example, the anthropological work of Clifford Geertz and Mary Douglas has been employed widely to shed light on popular ritual and custom, and the linguistic theory of Mikhail Bakhtin has been applied to reveal the workings of popular counter cultures from the Middle Ages to the present.

Cultural histories have made significant contributions to most areas of historical inquiry. Here we have tended to focus on popular and imperial experiences, but similar arguments could have been made about other areas. Attempts to understand the dynamics of popular culture have been among the most interesting and fruitful lines of inquiry. Drawing upon such notions as the carnivalesque, various historians have explored how vigorous counter cultures, with their own distinct senses of memory and custom, have sought symbolically to assert senses of collective identity, simultaneously resisting attempts by dominant authorities to impose control. Within an imperial context, we understand now far more about the processes through which colonial powers were able to exert power. Ultimately, this power derived from a military presence which could be mobilized whenever required, but on a routine basis it relied upon interventions in indigenous literature, language education and religion as a means of disseminating the putative superiority of European thought and values.

As a discipline, history is notoriously prone to changing fashions. With the declining influence of postmodern thought which had done much to promote cultural history, we might have expected the cultural turn to have receded. Fortunately, however, there is little sign that this is the case as thought-provoking and entertaining studies within the broad field of cultural history continue to appear.

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