Adventures of a Postmodern Historian: Living and Writing the Past

Description

Robert Rosenstone was among the first ‘postmodern’ historians, and remains one of the most renowned. In this honest, revealing and often funny memoir, he shows us how he got there and why. Adventures of a Postmodern Historian chronicles Rosenstone’s research journeys over half a century. Beginning in the 1960s, his offbeat trajectory took him on adventures through the police states of Franco Spain and the Soviet Union, to the Shinto shrines and Zen temples of Japan and finally to Hollywood. Alongside his own memoirs, Rosenstone reflects upon developments and changes within the realm of professional history, which in turn reflect the social, cultural, and intellectual shifts of the late 20th century. As a pioneer of experimental and creative history, he offers a defence of professional history that is both intellectually rigorous and entertaining, in defiance of the ‘traditional’ – and more limited – way of writing history. In doing so he offers an analysis of the state of history today – and a guide for how we should study and research it. This is a book about the craft of history, about writing history and about research. It should be required reading for all historians. FC Half title Title Copyright Quote Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Foreword Prologue: Adventures of a Historian? 1 Spain: Crusade of the Left 2 Soviet Union: Romantic Revolutionary 3 Japan: Mirror in the Shrine 4 Hollywood: Visions of the Past Epilogue: Stories from the Past Notes Bibliography Index