On the Future of History
The Postmodernist Challenge and Its Aftermath
9780226072807
9780226072791
9780226072814
On the Future of History
The Postmodernist Challenge and Its Aftermath
What does postmodernism mean for the future of history? Can one still write history in postmodernity? To answer questions such as these, Ernst Breisach provides the first comprehensive overview of postmodernism and its complex relationship to history and historiography. Placing postmodern theories in their intellectual and historical contexts, he shows how they are part of broad developments in Western culture.
Breisach sees postmodernism as neither just a fad nor a universal remedy. In clear and concise language, he presents and critically evaluates the major views on history held by influential postmodernists, such as Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, and the new narrativists. Along the way, he introduces to the reader major debates among historians over postmodern theories of evidence, objectivity, meaning and order, truth, and the usefulness of history. He also discusses new types of history that have emerged as a consequence of postmodernism, including cultural history, microhistory, and new historicism.
For anyone concerned with the postmodern challenge to history, both advocates and critics alike, On the Future of History will be a welcome guide.
Breisach sees postmodernism as neither just a fad nor a universal remedy. In clear and concise language, he presents and critically evaluates the major views on history held by influential postmodernists, such as Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, and the new narrativists. Along the way, he introduces to the reader major debates among historians over postmodern theories of evidence, objectivity, meaning and order, truth, and the usefulness of history. He also discusses new types of history that have emerged as a consequence of postmodernism, including cultural history, microhistory, and new historicism.
For anyone concerned with the postmodern challenge to history, both advocates and critics alike, On the Future of History will be a welcome guide.
256 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2003
History: European History, History of Ideas
Literature and Literary Criticism: General Criticism and Critical Theory
Philosophy: General Philosophy
Sociology: General Sociology
Reviews
Table of Contents
A Prefatory and Introductory Note
Part 1 - A Preliminary Exploration of the Postmodernist Challenge
1. A Look at Terms and Issues
2. An Adversarial Image of Modernity
3. The Postmodern Moment
4. At the Core of the Postmodernist Challenge to History
5. Two Versions of the Postmodernist Future
-Postmodernity as the Ultimate Era of Stability
-Postmodernity as the Endless Stage of Total Flux
6. The Project of a Postmodernist Theory of History
Part 2 - Postmodernity as the Triumph of Continuity: Structural Postmodernism
7. Postmodernism’s Emergence in an Unlikely Setting
8. An Early Redefinition of Progress’s Destination
9. Views with Postmodernist Affinities
10. The First Twentieth-Century Postmodernist: Alexandre Kojève
11. The Flourishing of Structural Postmodernism (1945-65)
-The Setting
-An Ideological Path to Postmodernity: Hendrik de Man and Bertrand de Jouvenel
-An Anthropological Path to Postmodernity: Arnold Gehlen
-A Scientific-Technological Path to Postmodernity: Roderick Seidenberg
12. The Fading of Structural Postmodernism and a Triumphal Exception: Francis Fukuyama
13. Insights and Problems
Part 3 - Postmodernity as the Age of Dominant Change: Poststructuralist Postmodernism
14. A Prelude to Poststructuralist Postmodernism Name, Motive, and Task
-Two Decisive Intellectual Turns: Linguistic and Philosophical
-The Context of Poststructuralist Postmodernism’s Rise
15. Narrativist History in the Poststructuralist Mode
-The Preparatory Role of Early Narrativism
-Roland Barthes’s Challenge
-Narrativism, Poststructuralist Postmodernism, and the Historical Ways of Inquiry: White, Ankersmit, Kellner
-Motives, Visions, and Problems
-Coming to Terms with the New Narrativism: The Recent Scholarly Debate
16. In the Eye of the Storm: The Poststructuralist Postmodernist Concept of Truth
-The Target of Rejection
-Preparatory Developments for the Revision of Truth: Dilthey, Nietzsche, Heidegger
-Foucault’s Truth: Power Manifested in Language
-Jacques Derrida: A Systematic Answer
-A Moderately Linguistic Approach: Jean-François Lyotard
-Reflections on the New Concept of Truth
-The Debate on the Implications for Historical Thought and Practice
17. The Metanarrative Controversy
-The Argument against the Historical Metanarrative: Lyotard, Foucault, Derrida, Baudrillard
-The Ongoing Debate about the Metanarrative
-An Innovative Variant: The New Cultural History
18. Poststructuralist Postmodernists on the Individual and the Utility of History
-Could History Still be Useful?
-The Deconstruction of the Individual as Historical Agent
-Can Postmodernist Views of History Justify Action?
-Activism without the Guidance of the Past
-Responses to the Challenge
Part 4 - Poststructuralist Postmodernism and the Reshaping of Society
19. What Kind of Marxism in Postmodernity?
-The Contestants and the Historical Situation
-The Deconstruction of the Marxist View of History
-A Marxist Variant with Postmodernist Themes: The Frankfurt School and Habermas
20. Postmodernism and Feminist History
Part 5 - Concluding Observations
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
Part 1 - A Preliminary Exploration of the Postmodernist Challenge
1. A Look at Terms and Issues
2. An Adversarial Image of Modernity
3. The Postmodern Moment
4. At the Core of the Postmodernist Challenge to History
5. Two Versions of the Postmodernist Future
-Postmodernity as the Ultimate Era of Stability
-Postmodernity as the Endless Stage of Total Flux
6. The Project of a Postmodernist Theory of History
Part 2 - Postmodernity as the Triumph of Continuity: Structural Postmodernism
7. Postmodernism’s Emergence in an Unlikely Setting
8. An Early Redefinition of Progress’s Destination
9. Views with Postmodernist Affinities
10. The First Twentieth-Century Postmodernist: Alexandre Kojève
11. The Flourishing of Structural Postmodernism (1945-65)
-The Setting
-An Ideological Path to Postmodernity: Hendrik de Man and Bertrand de Jouvenel
-An Anthropological Path to Postmodernity: Arnold Gehlen
-A Scientific-Technological Path to Postmodernity: Roderick Seidenberg
12. The Fading of Structural Postmodernism and a Triumphal Exception: Francis Fukuyama
13. Insights and Problems
Part 3 - Postmodernity as the Age of Dominant Change: Poststructuralist Postmodernism
14. A Prelude to Poststructuralist Postmodernism Name, Motive, and Task
-Two Decisive Intellectual Turns: Linguistic and Philosophical
-The Context of Poststructuralist Postmodernism’s Rise
15. Narrativist History in the Poststructuralist Mode
-The Preparatory Role of Early Narrativism
-Roland Barthes’s Challenge
-Narrativism, Poststructuralist Postmodernism, and the Historical Ways of Inquiry: White, Ankersmit, Kellner
-Motives, Visions, and Problems
-Coming to Terms with the New Narrativism: The Recent Scholarly Debate
16. In the Eye of the Storm: The Poststructuralist Postmodernist Concept of Truth
-The Target of Rejection
-Preparatory Developments for the Revision of Truth: Dilthey, Nietzsche, Heidegger
-Foucault’s Truth: Power Manifested in Language
-Jacques Derrida: A Systematic Answer
-A Moderately Linguistic Approach: Jean-François Lyotard
-Reflections on the New Concept of Truth
-The Debate on the Implications for Historical Thought and Practice
17. The Metanarrative Controversy
-The Argument against the Historical Metanarrative: Lyotard, Foucault, Derrida, Baudrillard
-The Ongoing Debate about the Metanarrative
-An Innovative Variant: The New Cultural History
18. Poststructuralist Postmodernists on the Individual and the Utility of History
-Could History Still be Useful?
-The Deconstruction of the Individual as Historical Agent
-Can Postmodernist Views of History Justify Action?
-Activism without the Guidance of the Past
-Responses to the Challenge
Part 4 - Poststructuralist Postmodernism and the Reshaping of Society
19. What Kind of Marxism in Postmodernity?
-The Contestants and the Historical Situation
-The Deconstruction of the Marxist View of History
-A Marxist Variant with Postmodernist Themes: The Frankfurt School and Habermas
20. Postmodernism and Feminist History
Part 5 - Concluding Observations
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index