Rethinking History and Myth explores narrative and ritual expressions of mythic and historical modes of consciousness among indigenous peoples of the Andean, Amazonian, and intermediate lowland regions of South America. Focusing on indigenous perspectives of South American interaction with Western colonial and national societies, the authors trace the interrelationships between myth and history to demonstrate how these peoples have developed a dynamic interpretive framework that enables them to understand their past. Examining specific cultural and linguistic traditions that shape the social consciousness of native South Americans, the authors show that historical and mythic consciousness work together in forming new symbolic strategies that allow indigenous peoples to understand their societies as at least partially autonomous groups within national and global power structures. This complex process is used to interpret the history of interethnic relations, allowing both individuals and groups to change themselves and alter their own circumstances.
History means many things to many people. But finding an answer to the question 'What is history?' is a task few feel equipped to answer. If you want to explore this tantalising subject, where do you start? What are the critical skills you need to begin to make sense of the past? The perfect introduction to this thought-provoking area, Jenkins' clear and concise prose guides readers through the controversies and debates that surround historical thinking at the present time, providing them with the means to make their own discoveries.
The historical interface between science and religion was depicted as an unbridgeable conflict in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Starting in the 1970s, such a conception was too simplistic and not at all accurate when considering the totality of that relationship. This volume evaluates the utility of the “complexity principle” in past, present, and future scholarship. First put forward by historian John Brooke over twenty-five years ago, the complexity principle rejects the idea of a single thesis of conflict or harmony, or integration or separation, between science and religion. Rethinking History, Science, and Religion brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars at the forefront of their fields to consider whether new approaches to the study of science and culture—such as recent developments in research on science and the history of publishing, the global history of science, the geographical examination of space and place, and science and media—have cast doubt on the complexity thesis, or if it remains a serviceable historiographical model.
Rethinking Copyright is a small gem for an audience broader than copyright and intellectual property scholars, and well worth acquiring by a variety of general, corporate, law and academic libraries. Laurence Seidenberg, International Journal of Legal Information This excellent book raises again the controversial issue of whether we can learn anything and, if so, what from revisiting our past. Jeremy Phillips, ipkat.com All histories are about the present, not the past. Histories of copyright are no different: the pitched battles today over the nature of copyright frequently re-create a mythical past to shore up support for a partisan present. Deazley s Rethinking Copyright is a must have book for those who care about getting things right. Rethinking Copyright carefully reviews the critical formative years of statutory copyright (1710 1912), and then masterfully ties this foundational period to the current culture wars. It is a tour de force to be savored and returned to over and over again. William Patry, Senior Copyright Counsel, Google Inc., New York, US Two books in one, the first half of this manifesto offers a contrarian account of eighteenth and nineteenth-century English copyright history; the second contributes to the burgeoning rhetoric of the public domain in contemporary copyright scholarship. Deazley contends that, contrary to the common wisdom, common law copyright never existed in the eighteenth-century, but was a concerted creation of nineteenth-century treatise writers. He may not convince us that common law copyright was a myth, but he does compellingly demonstrate that, like the mythical giant Antaeus, whenever common law copyright seemed beaten down to the ground, it rose again with renewed force. He also persuades us that it may be a Herculean task to strangle the life out of the impulse, historical or otherwise, to believe that authors labors justify the contemporary default setting of the positive law in favor of proprietary rights. The second half, calling for reconceptualization of copyright as a derogation from the public s freedom to engage with works of authorship will surely provoke disagreement from many readers knowledgeable about copyright, but Deazley is an apt expositor of this increasingly popular trend in the legal academy. Jane C. Ginsburg, Columbia University School of Law, New York, US Copyright law remains hotly debated with the public domain contested territory. Ronan Deazley brings some welcome sanity to the discussion by revisiting the history of UK copyright law with a fresh eye and also by exploring the theoretical justifications for intellectual property in light of recent scholarship. The roles of rhetoric and legal writing in constructing copyright paradigms are the particular target of Deazley s critique. This is a provocative and challenging book which deserves a wide audience. Simon Stokes, Blake Lapthorn Tarlo Lyons and Bournemouth Law School, UK I have just finished reading Ronan Deazley s manuscript. It s a very enjoyable, readable book. As to content, I found it interesting, carefully researched, wide in scope, and thought-provoking even where I didn t agree with his conclusions. Catherine Seville, Newnham College, Cambridge, UK This book provides the reader with a critical insight into the history and theory of copyright within contemporary legal and cultural discourse. It exposes as myth the orthodox history of the development of copyright law in eighteenth-century Britain and explores the way in which that myth became entrenched throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. To this historical analysis are added two theoretical approaches to copyright not otherwise found in mainstream contemporary texts. Rethinking Copyright introduces the reader to copyright through the prism of the public domain before turning to the question as to how best to locate copyright within the parameters of traditional property discourse. Moreover, underpinning
"Rethinking Home is pioneering scholarship at its best. Amato makes his case for a new local history combining academic sophistication with a deft human touch, that can provide a new perspective on the way in which humans have interacted with their natural and created environments over the past 150 years. Amato’s eloquent plea for scholars to rethink the intricate relationships between home, place, nation, and world is one that cannot be ignored."—Richard O. Davies, University Foundation Professor, University of Nevada "Local history is the stepchild of our profession. Joseph Amato has emancipated Cinderella. Innovative and engaging, his passion for particulars brings life to people and places whose interest we have underrated far too long; and provides a good read beside."—Eugen Weber Department of History, UCLA "In the best Thoreauvian sense, Joseph Amato masterfully synthesizes and eloquently presents two decades of practicing and thinking deeply about local history. How pleasantly odd, how wonderful that a book on local history should be so rousing, so encouraging, so redemptive! Rethinking Home is a veritable call to arms for those of us who care deeply about the special, the distinctive character of our own home places, our own locales."—Bradley P. Dean, Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods
Since its publication in 1962, Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring has often been celebrated as the catalyst that sparked an American environmental movement. Yet environmental consciousness and environmental protest in some regions of the United States date back to the nineteenth century, with the advent of industrial manufacturing and the consequent growth of cities. As these changes transformed people's lives, ordinary Americans came to recognize the connections between economic exploitation, social inequality, and environmental problems. As the modern age dawned, they turned to labor unions, sportsmen’s clubs, racial and ethnic organizations, and community groups to respond to such threats accordingly. The Myth of Silent Spring tells this story. By challenging the canonical “songbirds and suburbs” interpretation associated with Carson and her work, the book gives readers a more accurate sense of the past and better prepares them for thinking and acting in the present.
First published ten years ago, award-winning historian Ray Raphael’s Founding Myths has since established itself as a landmark of historical myth-busting. With the author’s trademark wit and flair, Founding Myths exposes the errors and inventions in America’s most cherished tales, from Paul Revere’s famous ride to Patrick Henry’s “Liberty or Death” speech. For the seventy thousand readers who have been captivated by Raphael’s eye-opening accounts, history has never been the same. In this revised tenth-anniversary edition, Raphael revisits the original myths and explores their further evolution over the past decade, uncovering new stories and peeling back additional layers of misinformation. This new edition also examines the highly politicized debates over America’s past, as well as how school textbooks and popular histories often reinforce rather than correct historical mistakes. A book that “explores the truth behind the stories of the making of our nation” (National Public Radio), this revised edition of Founding Myths will be a welcome resource for anyone seeking to separate historical fact from fiction.
The moment of contact between two peoples, two alien societies, marks the opening of an epoch and the joining of histories. What if it had happened differently? The stories that indigenous peoples and Europeans tell about their first encounters with one another are enormously valuable historical records, but their relevance extends beyond the past. Settler populations and indigenous peoples the world over are engaged in negotiations over legitimacy, power, and rights. These struggles cannot be dissociated from written and oral accounts of "contact" moments, which not only shape our collective sense of history but also guide our understanding of current events. For all their importance, contact stories have not been systematically or critically evaluated as a genre. Myth and Memory explores the narratives of indigenous and newcomer populations from New Zealand and across North America, from the Lost Colony of Roanoke on the Atlantic seaboard of the United States to the Pacific Northwest and as far as Sitka, Alaska. It illustrates how indigenous and explorer accounts of the same meetings reflect fundamentally different systems of thought, and focuses on the cultural misunderstandings embedded in these stories. The contributors discuss the contemporary relevance, production, and performance of Aboriginal and European contact narratives, and introduce new tools for interpreting the genre. They argue that we are still in the contact zone, striving to understand the meaning of contact and the relationship between indigenous and settler populations.
In Rethinking German History, first published in 1987, Richard J. Evans argues for a social-historical approach to the German past that pays equal attention to objective social structures and subjective values and experiences. If German history has been seen as an exception to the ‘normal’ development of Western society, this is not least because historians have until recently largely failed to look beyond the world of high politics, institutions, organizations and ideologies to broader historical problems of German society and German mentalities. By applying and adapting approaches learned from French and British social history as they have been developed over the last quarter of a century, it is possible to achieve a rethinking of German history which does away with many of the textbook myths that have encrusted the historiogrpahy of Germany for so long. This book will be valuable for students of German history and politics, and brings together essays widely used in teaching. Its broad coverage of social history will also be useful to all those interested in contemporary historiography or the comparative study of European history.
