Customer Reviews

The New Cultural History (Studies on the History of Society and Culture)

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In the book The New Cultural History, editor Lynn Hunt has compiled a series of essays that seek to explain cultural history, as well as essays that undertake the approach to history that is exemplified in cultural history. Each essay is by a cultural historian of some degree, and each excerpt builds upon and carries out the notion of cultural history itself. Instead of one long discussion about what is cultural history, this volume effectively translates the aspects of cultural history for the reader by offering various examples of how cultural historians write. The first half of the book is devoted to "models of cultural history," and it offers just that. In her essay on Michel Foucault, Patricia O'Brien gives the reader a better understanding of cultural history through the works and visions of the famous French philosopher. She argues that Foucault's approach to historical discourse paved the way for historians to be able to draw on interpretations of facts rather than just the facts alone. Suzanne Desan, in her essay, shows how this historical method was employed by more contemporary historians such as E.P. Thompson and Natalie Davis. Through their work the reader sees how they moved from a socioeconomic, Marxist view of history to one that was outlined by Foucault. Though Desan is writing a history, she is also doing what her subjects did and draws her own interpretations and finally, calls for a merge between social and cultural history. Aletta Biersack and Lloyd S. Kramer both take this new cultural history as a model, and in their respective essays discuss how anthropology and literature offer invaluable insights

into the psychology of culture of the masses. Once the model for cultural history is established, part two of The New Cultural History shows how use of philosophy, psychology, literature, and anthropology are used when discussing histories of various institutions. In her essay on the American Parade, Mary Ryan gives a more thorough history of an American custom by limiting the scope of her topic to three cities and a very concentrated period of time. She is then more able to draw interpretations of what the American parade has meant and through her findings, gives credence to her own hypothesis that the parade has mirrored the rise and fall of various social groups. In "Texts, Printing, Readings" author Roger Chartier looks at the text of creating text itself as a clue into how society reads and why, and through drawing his own interpretations he gives a voice to the readers in the past, and in a sense, gives ammunition for social historians who argue that there is a power relationship between printing and the masses. Thomas W. Laquer shows how this "ammunition" for social historians was further realized through narratives about human suffering in his article "Bodies, Details, and the Humanitarian Narrative." In the final essay, Randolph Starn draws on science to explain how art was created and perceived during the Renaissance and how a deeper understanding of how the eye works can show how making a work seem "Classical" served the deeper purpose of propagating and stabilizing power in the past. In every essay of The New Cultural History, it is this relationship between the popular masses and power that is in some way addressed. Each historian in the volume argues in different ways that power is not dictated from the upper levels by the elite, but rather that it is created among the population itself.

The population in question is culture, and by studying the various roots of power and reasons for it within a specific culture, it is possible to write a respected and valid history of that culture.

This book had a lot of interesting ideas, but it also had many flaws. It purports to be an introduction to the area of cultural history, but the essays assume the readers have a certain amount of knowledge. Beyond that, it is also poorly written. As a 3rd-year history/English major, I often had some trouble following the arguments this volume made. The authors could have articulated themselves much better. I have to say, the area of cultural history is fascinating, but I would like to think that there are clearer volumes out there.