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History as a field of learning is in a state of crisis. It has lost much of its influence in institutions of higher learning and its place in public esteem. Historians have, in large part, lost touch with the intelligent lay reader and with the undergraduate college student. History's value to society is being questioned. In this work, a distinguished historian views the profession to which he has been devoted for more than thirty years. Theodore S. Hamerow's learned observations will be welcomed by all historians and by those involved in the management of higher education, and should be required reading for all graduate students in history. Far from being a sentimental look at the past, Hamerow's work confronts the unpleasant reality of the present. History, he says flatly, is a discipline in retreat. The profession is in serious trouble and there are no signs that its problems will be resolved in the foreseeable future. After identifying the current crisis, Hamerow proceeds to trace the development of the profession over the last hundred years and to examine its characteristics in modern society. In this section of the book he shares some fascinating practical observations on the ways in which the profession operates. Hamerow explains why some historians rise to prominence while others do not. He also examines causes of the dissatisfactions that afflict many historians and their students. Hamerow also examines the way in which academic historians live their lives, as he expands on the daily realities that they face. He then explains how those realities have shaped scholarship and led to the "new history." The broad use of social science methods, he observes, has had the effect of isolating the new historians from traditional historians, indeed from one another. Couched in the arcane prose of machine-readable languages, says Hamerow, history has become inaccessible to the intelligent lay reader who had once read historical works with interest, understanding, and appreciation. In concluding his examination, Hamerow asks, "What is the use of history?" It has long been a favorite question asked by historians, but seldom one over which they agonized for very long. After considering various arguments for the usefulness of historical investigation, Hamerow offers his own justification. There are times, says Hamerow, when even the most spontaneous or instructive cultural pursuits need to be examined in the light of the purposes they serve and the goals they seek. Now might be a good time for all historians to take a long look at the direction their discipline has taken in the past century, at the functions it has come to perform, and at the serious dilemma it now faces. Hamerow is a steady and helpful guide to any such examination.
A RECOMMENDED SUMMER READ BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, TIME, AND NEWSWEEK Longtime Jeopardy! host and television icon Alex Trebek reflects on his life and career. Since debuting as the host of Jeopardy! in 1984, Alex Trebek has been something like a family member to millions of television viewers, bringing entertainment and education into their homes five nights a week. Last year, he made the stunning announcement that he had been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. What followed was an incredible outpouring of love and kindness. Social media was flooded with messages of support, and the Jeopardy! studio received boxes of cards and letters offering guidance, encouragement, and prayers. For over three decades, Trebek had resisted countless appeals to write a book about his life. Yet he was moved so much by all the goodwill, he felt compelled to finally share his story. “I want people to know a little more about the person they have been cheering on for the past year,” he writes in The Answer Is…: Reflections on My Life. The book combines illuminating personal anecdotes with Trebek’s thoughts on a range of topics, including marriage, parenthood, education, success, spirituality, and philanthropy. Trebek also addresses the questions he gets asked most often by Jeopardy! fans, such as what prompted him to shave his signature mustache, his insights on legendary players like Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer, and his opinion of Will Ferrell’s Saturday Night Live impersonation. The book uses a novel structure inspired by Jeopardy!, with each chapter title in the form of a question, and features dozens of never-before-seen photos that candidly capture Trebek over the years. This wise, charming, and inspiring book is further evidence why Trebek has long been considered one of the most beloved and respected figures in entertainment.
An erudite scholar and an elegant writer, Gordon S. Wood has won both numerous awards and a broad readership since the 1969 publication of his widely acclaimed The Creation of the American Republic. With The Purpose of the Past, Wood has essentially created a history of American history, assessing the current state of history vis-à-vis the work of some of its most important scholars-doling out praise and scorn with equal measure. In this wise, passionate defense of history's ongoing necessity, Wood argues that we cannot make intelligent decisions about the future without understanding our past. Wood offers a master's insight into what history-at its best-can be and reflects on its evolving and essential role in our culture.
“Exhilarating . . . brave and forthright.” —The New York Times Book Review “Perhaps the greatest single collection of thinking on the political, diplomatic, social, and cultural history of the past century.” —Forbes We have entered an age of forgetting. Our world, we insist, is unprecedented, wholly new. The past has nothing to teach us. Drawing provocative connections between a dazzling range of subjects, from Jewish intellectuals and the challenge of evil in the recent European past to the interpretation of the Cold War and the displacement of history by heritage, the late historian Tony Judt takes us beyond what we think we know of the past to explain how we came to know it, showing how much of our history has been sacrificed in the triumph of myth—making over understanding and denial over memory. Reappraisals offers a much-needed road map back to the historical sense we urgently need. Judt's book, Ill Fares the Land, republished in 2021 featuring a new preface by bestselling author of Between the World and Me and The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi Coates.
A repackaged edition of the revered author’s moving theological work in which he considers the most poetic portions from Scripture and what they tell us about God, the Bible, and faith. In this wise and enlightening book, C. S. Lewis—the great British writer, scholar, lay theologian, broadcaster, Christian apologist, and bestselling author of Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Chronicles of Narnia, and many other beloved classics—examines the Psalms. As Lewis divines the meaning behind these timeless poetic verses, he makes clear their significance in our daily lives, and reminds us of their power to illuminate moments of grace.
Insights into how history continues to influence contemporary Native life.
Written in the last years of his life, Reflections from the North Country is often considered Sigurd Olson's most intellectually significant work. In an account alive with anecdote and insight, Olson outlines the wilderness philosophy he developed while working as an outspoken advocate for the conservation of America's natural heritage.Based on speeches delivered at town meetings and government hearings, this book joins The Singing Wilderness and Listening Point as the core of Olson's work. Upon its initial publication in 1976, Reflections from the North Country, with Olson's unique combination of lyrical nature writing and activism, became an inspiration to the burgeoning environmental movement, selling over 46,000 copies in hardcover. In this wide-ranging work, Olson evokes the soaring grace of raven, osprey, and eagle, the call of the loon, and the song of the hermit thrush. He challenges the reader to loosen the grasp of technology and the rush of contemporary life and make room for a sense of wonder heightened by being in nature. From evolution to the meaning and power of solitude, Olson meditates on the human condition, offering eloquent testimony to the joys and truths he discovered in his beloved north-country wilderness.
Pursuing this objective, Alex Callinicos critically confronts a number of leading attempts to reconceptualize the meaning of history, including Francis Fukuyama's rehabilitation of Hegel's philosophy of history and the postmodernist efforts of Hayden White and others to deny the existence of a past independent of our representations of it. In these cases philosophical arguments are pursued in tandem with discussions of historical interpretations of, respectively, Stalinism and the Holocaust.