1st Edition

At the Limits of History Essays on Theory and Practice

By Keith Jenkins Copyright 2009
    336 Pages
    by Routledge

    336 Pages
    by Routledge

    "Why bother with history? Keith Jenkins has an answer. He helps us re-think the "end of history", as signalled by postmodernity. Readers may disagree with him, but he never fails to provoke debate about the future of the past."

    Joanna Bourke, Professor of History, Birkbeck College

    Keith Jenkins’ work on historical theory is renowned; this collection presents the essential elements of his work over the last fifteen years.

    Here we see Jenkins address the difficult and complex question of defining the limits of history. The collection draws together the key pieces of his work in one handy volume, encompassing the ever controversial issue of postmodernism and history, questions on the end of history and radical history into the future. Exchanges with Perez Zagorin and Michael Coleman further illuminate the level of debate that has surrounded postmodernism, and which continues to do so. An extended introduction and abstracts which contextualize each piece, together with a foreword by Hayden White and an afterword by Alun Munslow, make this collection essential reading for all those interested in the theory and practice of history and its development over the last few decades.

    Foreword: By Hayden White General Introduction 1. Marxism and Historical Knowledge: Tony Bennett and the Discursive Turn, Literature and History, 1994 2. Why bother with the Past? Rethinking History, 1997 3. Perez Zagorin, History, The Referent and Narrative: Reflections on Postmodernism Now, History and Theory (1999) 4. A Postmodern Reply to Perez Zagorin, History and Theory, 2000 5. Perez Zagorin: Responding to Jenkins, History and Theory, 2000 6. Against the Historical Middle-Ground, American Studies in Scandinavia (2003) 7. Modernist Disavowals and Postmodernist Reminders of the Condition of History Today: On Jean François Lyotard, Rethinking History (2003) 8. On Disobedient Histories, Rethinking History (2003) 9. Ethical History and the Historian: On the Possible End of History "of a Certain Kind", History and Theory (2004) 10. Once Upon a Time: On History, Inaugural Lecture, University of Chichester (2005) 11. History, Postmodernism and Frank Ankersmit, in, A. McFie, (ed) The Philosophy of History, Palgrave, 2006 12. The End of the Affair, Rethinking History, (2007) 13. Cohen Contra Ankersmit, Rethinking History (2007) 14. Nobody Does It Better: On the Conditions of Possibility of a Radical History and Hayden White, For White, Stanford University press (forthcoming 2008) 15. Sande Cohen: On the Verge of Newness, Rethinking History (forthcoming 2008) Afterword: By Alun Munslow

    Biography

    Keith Jenkins is Emeritus Professor, University of Chichester. He is the author of five books on historical theory and co-editor (with Alun Munslow) of The Nature of History Reader and (with Sue Morgan and Alun Munslow) Manifestos for History, all published by Routledge.

    'Why bother with history? Keith Jenkins has an answer. He helps us re-think the "end of history", as signalled by postmodernity. Readers may disagree with him, but he never fails to provoke debate about the future of the past.'Joanna Bourke, Professor of History, Birkbeck College

    'Confronting thus the desolation of affirmative historical culture on thoughtful ethical grounds, At the Limits of History evinces intellectual resilience and conveys an urgent immediacy – what in the struggle for social hope Ernst Bloch calls the "actual experience of being on philosophy's 'front-line".'Reviews in History