Analysing Historical Narratives

For all of the recent debates over the methods and theoretical underpinnings of the historical profession, scholars and laypeople alike still frequently think of history in terms of storytelling. Accordingly, historians and theorists have devoted much attention to how historical narratives work, illuminating the ways they can bind together events, shape an argument and lend support to ideology. From ancient Greece to modern-day bestsellers, the studies gathered here offer a wide-ranging analysis of the textual strategies used by historians. They show how in spite of the pursuit of truth and objectivity, the ways in which historians tell their stories are inevitably conditioned by their discursive contexts.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements

Narrativity and Historical Writing: Introductory Remarks
Chris Lorenz, Stefan Berger and Nicola Brauch

Part I: Professional History Writing

Chapter 1. Thucydides' Narrative of the Vanquished: Death, Narrative Gazes and Historical Time
Alexandra Lianeri

Chapter 2. History beyond Narration: The Shifting Terrain of Bloodlands
Wulf Kansteiner

Chapter 3. Secularization Narratives in 1950s Europe: Sources, Characteristics and Effects
Herman Paul

Chapter 4. Narratives of Global History: Expounding Global Interconnections
Gabriele Lingelbach

Part II: School Textbooks in History

Chapter 5. More Than Just Barbarians: The Two-Faced Narrative of Ancient Persia in German Textbooks since 1900
Björn Onken

Chapter 6. Historicizing Present-Day European Societies by Telling Medieval (Hi)Story in Schoolbooks
Daniel Wimmer

Chapter 7. Narrative Structure of High School World History Textbooks in Postwar Japan
Naoki Odanaka

Chapter 8. Historical Maps as Narratives: Anchoring the Nation in History Textbooks
Everardo Perez-Manjarrez and Mario Carretero

Part III: Histories in Various Media

Chapter 9. Social Media and Multimodal Historical Representation: Depicting Auschwitz on Instagram
Robbert-Jan Adriaansen

Chapter 10. The Civil Rights Movement (Re)Narrated
Kenan van de Mieroop

Chapter 11. Media Narratives of 1970s Left-Wing Terrorism
Jörg Requate

Chapter 12. Time Travel as Running around in Circles: The Popular Historical Novel and the Sense of Historicity in Today’s Society
Daniel Fulda

Part IV: National Histories

Chapter 13. National Narratives in Chinese Global History Writing
Xupeng Zhang

Chapter 14. Narratives of Brazilian History: From Liberal to Politically Incorrect
Valdei Araujo

Chapter 15. Changing LUK: Nation and Narration in the First and the Third editions of Life in the United Kingdom
Arthur Chapman

Analysing Historical Narratives: Concluding Remarks
Stefan Berger and Chris Lorenz

Index