History and Morality

by Donald Bloxham Narrated by Roger Clark

Overview

Against majority opinion within his profession, Donald Bloxham argues that it is legitimate, often unavoidable, and frequently important for historians to make value judgments about the past. History and Morality draws on a wide range of historical examples, and its author's insights as a practicing historian. Examining concepts like impartiality, neutrality, contextualization, and the use and abuse of the idea of the past as a foreign country, Bloxham's book investigates how far tacit moral judgments infuse works of history, and how strange those histories would look if the judgments were removed. The author argues that rather than trying to eradicate all judgmental elements from their work, historians need to think more consistently about how, and with what justification, they make the judgments that they do. The importance of all this lies not just in the responsibilities that historians bear towards the past-responsibilities to take historical actors on those actors' own terms and to portray the impact of those actors' deeds-but also in the role of history as a source of identity, pride, and shame in the present. The account of moral thought in History and Morality has ramifications far beyond the activities of vocational historians.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Bloxham's book is a call for nuance and self-awareness, arguing that moral judgement is not only important, but is actually inescapable. What matters is how we deploy it - and that we are conscious of doing so." — Jonathan Waterlow, H/Sz/Kult

"It is all too rare that a scholarly book - the product of decades of research and careful thought - emerges at precisely the moment when it is most needed ... Masterfully spanning multiple academic disciplines, Bloxham takes us back to the very foundations of Western thinking, charting the development of our conceptions of core values like 'truth', 'justice', 'responsibility', and 'guilt' ... History and Morality will be immensely useful not only for a generation of historians wary of making value judgements about the past, but also for a new generation who, in their drive to bring morality back into the picture, are sometimes too hasty to appreciate the importance of context and the pitfalls of anachronism." — Jonathan Waterlow, H-Soz-Kult

Product Details

BN ID:	2940176206623
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	11/17/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	953,796

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