A Brief History of History

Jeremy Black is the author of numerous books, including A Subject for Taste: Culture in Eighteenth-Century England; George III: America's Last King; England in the Age of Shakespeare; and Charting the Past: The Historical Worlds of Eighteenth-Century England. He is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Exeter and a Senior Fellow both of Policy Exchange and of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Black is a recipient of the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize from the Society for Military History. Follow Black on his website.

1. Introduction: The Controversy of History 2. Origin Accounts and Sacred Time 3. Printing and New Universal Histories 4. Rejecting the Past 5. New Pasts 6. Contesting the Nations 7. History in the Long Cold War, 1917-89 8. Methods for a Modern Age 9. The Many Means of History 10. Into the Future Selected Further Reading

"Why are things as they are? Why do things change? How and by whom should that process of change be explained? In A Brief History of History, one of the world's leading historians shows how globalizing perspectives are transforming the meaning of 'progress.' This powerfully argued account of historical thinking shows Jeremy Black at his spiky and brilliant best."-Crawford Gribben, Queen's University Belfast "In A Brief History of History, world leading historian Jeremy Black shares decades of research and thinking to show how the subject has developed and how it is written. Perceptive, insightful, and packed with ideas, it addresses the central problem of today's 'culture wars'. Above all, it shows with great clarity how interconnected human experience is; and how dangerous it is to undermine those connections. It is an essential guide for those concerned about misinformation and false truths today."-William Gibson, Oxford Brookes University "Understanding historical episodes and their importance requires looking at how historians presented them at different periods. Jeremy Black's deeply informed study introduces readers to that task by presenting historians influential during their own time and how they used the past to explain their own present. Instead of reading back current trends and debates, he brings history's different roles to the forefront in a guide of the genre's long tradition."-William Anthony Hay, Mississippi State University "A sense of the past is inherent to all cultures. But that sense is not only fragile, it is also prone to manipulation for political, ideological or cultural ends. A Brief History of History shows how thinking about the past evolved inside academia and, more importantly, outside it and what the future may hold. It deftly combines scholarship with contemporary observations, fizzing with ideas that stimulate and challenge many cherished notions about the study of history. It is the perfect book for our perplexing times."-T.G. Otte, University of East Anglia