Explorations in Cultural History

History is an invention in the present, as much as a representation and interpretation of the past. This has opened up innovative approaches to the research and writing of history, and it is the two ideas central to this theme - that culture is historically conditioned and history culturally conditioned that this book explores. Both theoretical and practical in its approach, this volume explains the development of cultural history, and its impact on current teaching. Part One examines the ways in which conceptions of historical meaning have been challenged via developments in a range of disciplines (including literary and linguistic theory, history, sociology, anthropology, media and cultural studies). Part Two looks at four case studies drawn from America and Britain: the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial, the music of the Beatles, the social documentary of George Orwell, and the political polemics of nineteenth-century British radical women.

T.G. Ashplant is Principal Lecturer in Cultural History at Liverpool John Moores University. Gerry Smyth is the author of Decolonisation and Criticism (1998) and The Novel and the Nation (1997), both published by Pluto Press. He is Senior Lecturer in Cultural History at Liverpool John Moores University.