Why Bother with History?: Ancient, Modern and Postmodern Motivations

By Beverley C. Southgate

Book Overview

Using examples from antiquity to the present, this timely and relevant volume argues for an increasingly important role for a revitalised historical study. Examining the motivations of past historians, the author rejects the ancient aspiration to a 'history for its own sake' and argues that historians' importance lies in their own adoption of a moral standpoint. Inevitably controversial, in that it challenges many of the assumptions of modernist history, this is an interdisciplinary book, which draws in particular on psychology and literature.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0582423902
• ISBN13: 9780582423909
• Release Date: November 2000
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 198 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.1" x 9.2"