The Public History Reader

Drawing on theory and practice from five continents The Public History Reader offers clearly written accessible introductions to debates in public history. It places people, such as practitioners, bloggers, archivists, local historians, curators or those working in education, at the heart of history-making and discusses practical examples of artists, collectors, novelists, activists, curators, those paid to write history and those who do it for fun.

Hilda Kean and Paul Martin address the historical imagination through such concepts as ’embodiment’ and ’nostalgia’ whilst using practical examples to demonstrate them. The Reader explores public history as an everyday practice rather than simply as an academic discipline. It is embedded in the idea that historical knowledge is discovered and accrued from everyday encounters people have with their environments and points to the continuing dialogue that the present has with the past, exploring why this has burgeoned on a popular level in recent years.

Public History Reader is, therefore, a perfect resource for all students of Public History and all those interested in understanding the role of the past in our lives today.