How the Past was Used

Abstract

This volume brings together anthropologists, historians and literary scholars in order to explore how societies represented and used the past. Case studies range from the seventh century to the twenty-first, and from Africa, America and Asia to Europe. All the means and media by which societies, groups and individuals engaged with the past and expressed their understanding of it are addressed, and contributions treat not only professional historians, but also clerics, poets, novelists, administrators, political activists, and journalists as well as the consumers of their works. The utility of the past proved almost as infinitely variable as the modes of its representation. It might be a matter of learning lessons from experience, or about the legitimacy of a cause or regime, or the reputation of an individual. Rival versions and interpretations reflected, but also helped to create and sustain divergent communities and world views. With so much at stake, manipulations, distortions and myths proliferated. But given also that evidence of past societies was fragmentary, fragile and fraught with difficulties for those who sought to make sense of it, imaginative leaps and creativity necessarily came into the equation. Paradoxically, the very idea that the past was indeed useful was generally bound up with an image of history as inherently truthful. But then notions of truth proved malleable, even within one society, culture or period. Concerned with what engagements with the past can reveal about the wider intellectual and cultural frameworks within which they took place, the book is of relevance to anyone interested in how societies, communities and individuals acted on their historical consciousness.