Ebook: Exploring Cultural History: Essays in Honour of Peter Burke

First published 2010 by Ashgate Publishing.

Over the past thirty years, cultural history has moved from the periphery to the centre of historical studies, profoundly influencing the way we look at and analyse all aspects of the past. In this volume, a distinguished group in international historians has come together to consider the rise of cultural history in general, and to highlight the particular role played in this rise by Peter Burke, the first Professor of Cultural History of the University of Cambridge and one of the most prolific and influential authors in the field.

Reflecting the many and varied interests of Peter Burke, the essays in this volume cover a broad range of topics, geographies and chronologies. Grouped into four sections, 'Historical Anthropology', 'Politics and Communication', 'Images and Representations' and 'Encounters', the collection explores the boundaries and possibilities of cultural history; each essay presenting an opportunity to engage with the wider issues of the methods and problems of cultural history, and with Peter Burke's contributions to each chosen theme. Taken as a whole the collection shows how cultural history has enriched the ways in which we understand the traditional fields of political, economic, literary and military history, and permeates much of what we now understand as social history. It also demonstrates how cultural history is now at the heart of the coming together of traditional disciplines, providing a meeting ground for a variety of interests and methodologies.