Overview

'History', suggests Robert Gildea, 'is a battlefield.' Questions of power, rights, identity and nationhood always have an ancient and modern historical dimension and countries still go to war over their interpretation of history. Yet accounts of history are just as prone to fabrication as fake news, so how can we tell good history from bad? How can history be critical, learning from the past and righting wrongs, rather than divisive, such as riding roughshod over the rights of others? In this passionately argued book, Gildea suggests that the more people who really understand what good history entails, the more likely history is to triumph over myth. He sees positive signs in public history, citizen historians and community projects, among other developments. And he debunks claims that 'you cannot rewrite history', arguing that good history that's attuned to its times must be rewritten time and again.

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9781529230512

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Reviews

“Understanding the past has never been so necessary. Robert Gildea tells us why and shows us how it can be done better. An indispensable book for us all.” Joanna Bourke, Birkbeck, University of London “This timely, important and highly readable book shows why history matters for our societies now and for the future. The distinguished historian Robert Gildea has drawn on his lifetime’s work to warn us that we must not let bad history drive out good."" Margaret MacMillan, University of Oxford and University of Toronto “A calm, even-handed, almost Olympian survey and overview of the brutal battlefields of the history wars."" Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of 'The World: a Family History'

"“Understanding the past has never been so necessary. Robert Gildea tells us why and shows us how it can be done better. An indispensable book for us all.” Joanna Bourke, Birkbeck, University of London “This timely, important and highly readable book shows why history matters for our societies now and for the future. The distinguished historian Robert Gildea has drawn on his lifetime’s work to warn us that we must not let bad history drive out good."" Margaret MacMillan, University of Oxford and University of Toronto “A calm, even-handed, almost Olympian survey and overview of the brutal battlefields of the history wars."" Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of 'The World: a Family History'"

Author Information

Robert Gildea is Professor Emeritus of Modern History at the University of Oxford, and a specialist on French and European history in the 19th and 20th centuries. In 2003 he won the Wolfson Prize for History.

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