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

In the wake of heated debates on the nature of history, 'Why Bother With History?' considers its very purpose: why should we bother with it anyway? At a time when the subject is under threat both from political 'modernisers' and from some postmodernist theorists, Beverley Southgate argues for an increasingly important role for a revitalised historical study. Rejecting ancient and modern aspirations to a history 'for its own sake' produced by supposedly objective and attached authors, Southgate proposes rather that historians' importance lies in their own moral standpoint. Their story of the past facilitates the future we desire. Focusing on history's relationship with: Psychology Politics and Power Religion Education Postmodernity and using global examples from the ancient world to the present, this book is timely and inevitably controversial, challenging many of the assumptions of modernist history. Beverley Southgate is Reader Emeritus, University of Hertfordshire. His many publications include 'History: What and Why?' (1996).