The Killing of History: How Literary Critics and Social Theorists are Murdering Our Past"For 2,500 years, since the time of Herodotus and Thucydides, historians have sought to record the truth about the past. Today, however, the discipline is suffering a potentially lethal attach from the rise to prominence of an array of French-inspired literary and social theories, each of which denies that truth and knowledge about the past are possible. These theories claim the central point on which history was founded no longer holds: there is no fundamental distinction between history and myth or between history and fiction." "Historians in classrooms from Berkeley to Paris have embraced these views, and an increasing number of literary critics and social theorists now feel free to define their own work as history and to call themselves historians. The result is revolutionary: historians have not only changed how history is taught, they are also increasingly obscuring the very facts on which the truth must be built. In The Killing of History, Keith Windschuttle offers both a devastating expose of the absurdity of these developments and a defense of the integrity of Western intellectual traditions which are now so widely attacked." "Windschuttle examines exactly what is being taught about Columbus' discovery of the New World; the history of asylums and prisons in Europe; the fall of Communism in 1989; and the Battle of Quebec in 1759. He offers a much needed defense of traditional history as a properly scientific endeavor and argues that the great works of history should still be regarded as among the finest forms of Western literature."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
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Page 64
... priests . Four would hold the limbs and one the head . The angle of the plane of the stone meant that the victim's chest cavity was arched and elevated . The executioner priest then plunged a knife of flint under the exposed ribs and ...
... priests . Four would hold the limbs and one the head . The angle of the plane of the stone meant that the victim's chest cavity was arched and elevated . The executioner priest then plunged a knife of flint under the exposed ribs and ...
Page 65
... priests greeted them with the news that they were all to die for the inauguration of the newly completed Temple of Huitzilopochtli ( the same pyramid recently excavated in the square of the Cathedral of Mexico ) . Clendinnen describes ...
... priests greeted them with the news that they were all to die for the inauguration of the newly completed Temple of Huitzilopochtli ( the same pyramid recently excavated in the square of the Cathedral of Mexico ) . Clendinnen describes ...
Page 86
... priest , Kao.38 Obeyesekere argues that the commoners ' chants of ' Lono , Lono ' were probably not even meant for ... priests on the island . Lieutenant James King of the Reso- lution said Omiah was revered like the Dalai Lama ...
... priest , Kao.38 Obeyesekere argues that the commoners ' chants of ' Lono , Lono ' were probably not even meant for ... priests on the island . Lieutenant James King of the Reso- lution said Omiah was revered like the Dalai Lama ...
Contents
PREFACE | 1 |
PARIS LABELS AND DESIGNER CONCEPTS | 7 |
THE OMNIPOTENCE OF SIGNS | 41 |
Copyright | |
7 other sections not shown
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Aboriginal academic American Anthony Giddens argues argument Australian Aztecs believe Bligh's Bad Language Botany Bay Certeau claims Clendinnen Clive concept Cook Cook's Cortés critique cultural studies David Stove Dening's Derrida discipline discourse eighteenth century empirical end of history English European evidence explanation Flinders Francis Fukuyama French Fukuyama Gananath Obeyesekere Giddens Greg Dening Hawaiian Hayden White Hegel Heidegger historians human ideas imperial induction Inga Clendinnen intellectual interpretation islands killed kind knowledge Kuhn Lakatos literary critics logic London Lono Makahiki Marshall Sahlins Marxism Marxist means Mexica Michel Foucault modern narrative native Nietzsche nineteenth century Obeyesekere observation past Paul Carter perspective philosophy political Popper postmodernism postmodernist poststructuralism poststructuralist radical recognised relativism ritual Road to Botany Sahlins's says Schama scientific social sciences society Spanish spatial history structuralist structure Tahitians Tenochtitlan theorists theory thesis things Todorov traditional truth Tzvetan Todorov University warriors Western White writing
References to this book
Trusting Records: Legal, Historical and Diplomatic Perspectives H. MacNeil No preview available - 2000 |