Synopses & Reviews
People and their Pasts covers a range of stimulating topics discussing the different forms and ways the past is represented in the present. It explores these issues under three broad headings: the past in the present; presenting the past; places, communities and personal pasts.
Review
"This important and imaginative book explores the myriad ways in which the past is represented and remembered, remade and contested. Starting from the premise that 'we are all historians',
People and their Pasts uses rich case studies from around the world to examine the aims, approaches and impacts of public history and the pivotal role of the public historian."
- Alistair Thomson, Monash University, Australia
Synopsis
In this innovative and original collection, people are seen as active agents in the development of new ways of understanding the past and creating histories for the present.Chapters explore forms of public history in which people's experience and understanding of their personal, national and local pasts are part of their current lives."
Synopsis
People and their Pasts covers a range of stimulating topics discussing the different forms and ways the past is represented in the present. It explores these issues under three broad headings: the past in the present; presenting the past; places, communities and personal pasts.
About the Author
Paul Ashton is Associate Professor of Public History at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). Founding co-editor of Public History Review and co-Director of the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS, his books include The Accidental City: Planning Sydney Since 1788 (1993) and (with Jennifer Cornwall and Annette Salt) Sutherland Shire: A History (2006).
Hilda Kean is Director of Public History at Ruskin College, Oxford. She has published widely on cultural and public history. Her books include Deeds not Words: The lives of suffragette teachers (1990); Animal Rights: political and social change in Britain since 1800 (1998/ 2000); London Stories: personal lives, public histories (2004).
Table of Contents
Introduction: People and their Pasts and Public History--P.Ashton&H.Kean * PART I: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT * Making and Contesting History: Australians and their Pasts--P.Ashton&P.Hamilton * Public History and Memory. Building Bridges: A Comparative Analysis of Approaches to Public History--B.Jensen * History for the Public in the United States: Edification, Celebration or Entertainment?--E.McCarthy * Our People, Our Pasts, Our Taxes: Public History in New Zealand--B.Dalley * PART II: PRESENTING THE PAST * "Garden of Gratitude": the National Memorial Arboretum and "Strategic Remembering"--P.Gough * Re-enacting the Past: the 14th Century and Identity Creation--M.Backhouse * Representation Old/Representation New: Planning the Development of the Modern London Galleries at the Museum of London--D.McIntyre * Folk Life Museums Revisited--O.Fakatseli &P.McManus * Monument mania? Public space and the Black and Asian presence in London--J.Siblon * The Fabric of Society: a Hundred Years of Women's Clothes;K.Bradley * Researching Children's "Museum Theatre" Experiences--V.Tzibazi * PART III: PLACES, COMMUNITIES AND PERSONAL PASTS * The Teacher's Markbook, the Pupil's Memory: an exploration of the elision of the official and unofficial in creating new ideas of people's pasts--H.Kean&B.Kirsch * Absent Fathers, Present History: a Continuum--M.Bashforth * Memoryscape : Integrating Oral History, Memory and Landscape on the River Thames--T.Butler * Expanding the Archive: Using Family History to Explore the Connections within a Settler's World--M.Stewart * Harry Jacobs: the Studio Photographer and the Visual Archive--J.Newman