Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
The importance of history has been powerfully reaffirmed in recent years by the appearance of major new authors, pathbreaking works, and fresh interpretations of historical events, trends, and methods. Responding to these developments, Roger Chartier engages several of the most influential writers of cultural history whose works have spread far beyond academic audiences to become part of contemporary cultural argument. Challenging the assertion that history is no more than a fiction-making operation Chartier examines the relationships between history and fiction and proposes new foundations for establishing history as a specific kind of knowledge.
Michel de Certeau's description of Michel Foucault's writings as on the edge of the cliff, provides Chartier with an image he finds appropriate not only for Foucault but for many other recent historians--including de Certeau. Exploring the relationships between discursive practices and nondiscursive practices, Chartier examines the heterology of de Certeau pursues the chimera of origin and the causes of the French Revolution in Foucault's work; and raises four pertinent questions for the metahistory of Hayden White. He follows the work of Louis Marin into the distinctions between interpreting a painting and interpreting a text. And a trio of essays treats the historical sociology of Norbert Elias and his work on power and civility. Throughout, Chartier keeps his focus on historians who have stressed the relations between the products of discourse and social practices.
--Steven L. Kaplan, Cornell University
Table of Contents
History between narrative and knowledge -- Four questions for Hayden White -- Michel de Certeau : history, or knowledge of the other -- The chimera of the origin : archaeology of knowledge, cultural history, and the French Revolution -- Discourses and practices : on the origins of the French Revolution -- Texts, forms, and interpretations -- The powers and limits of representation -- Self-consciousness and the social bond -- The double bind and detachment -- Sports, or the controlled decontrolling of emotions -- Epilogue : friendship with history : Philippe Ariáes.