A Lover’s Quarrel with the Past

Although not a professional historian, the author raises several issues pertinent to the state of history today. Qualifying the ‘non-historian’ as an ‘able’ interventionist in historical studies, the author explores the relationship between history and theory within the current epistemological configurations and refigurations. He asks how history transcends the obsessive ‘linguistic’ turn, which has been hegemonizing literary/discourse analysis, and focuses greater attention on historical experience and where history stands in relation to our understanding of ethics, religion and the current state of global politics that underlines the manipulation and abuse of history.

Although not a professional historian, the author raises several issues pertinent to the state of history today. Qualifying the ‘non-historian’ as an ‘able’ interventionist in historical studies, the author explores the relationship between history and theory within the current epistemological configurations and refigurations. He asks how history transcends the obsessive ‘linguistic’ turn, which has been hegemonizing literary/discourse analysis, and focuses greater attention on historical experience and where history stands in relation to our understanding of ethics, religion and the current state of global politics that underlines the manipulation and abuse of history.

Acknowledgements

Foreword: Imagination and Fact: A Lover’s Quarrel
Frank Ankersmit

The Quarrel Begins…

Chapter 1. Romancing the Past: Presence and Intangibilities of History
Chapter 2. Reality of Representation, Reality behind Representation: History and Memory
Chapter 3. Whose Mandir? Whose Masjid? The Historian’s Ethics and the Ethics of Historical Reading

Afterword: The Quarrel Continues...
Mark Bevir and Ranjan Ghosh

Bibliography
Notes on contributors
Index