The Inventions of History

This collection of essays concentrates on the structures and connections which have made it possible, over the last two centuries, for an integrated regime of historical representation to emerge. It also touches upon the debate about the contemporary uses of history - whether it is a matter of "new" versus "traditional" approaches to the school curriculum, or of the need to "historicize" museums, houses and gardens and so avoid the blandness of an uninformed display. The first three essays are concerned with the relations between history and other textual materials and stress the importance of protocols exchanged and shared between disciplines such as history, law, medicine, theology and literature. The following essays discuss historical poetry and examine the treatment of historical objects and the use of museums to depict events from the past. An essay discussing the use of cinema to portray historical events is the first of three essays which discuss the historical status of the image and the final essay examines the area of art history.