Public History
Ludmilla Jordanova insists on the importance of history beyond the groves of academia, and considers some of the challenges that historians face in this field.
Recent times have seen a surge of interest in 'history’, a word that has many meanings. It can simply mean the past, and in this sense history has become a focus of increasing popular and commercial interest. History is also an academic discipline, and debates about its status as a field of study have intensified. For many years historiography, often used loosely to convey reflection upon the practice of history, was considered a bit of a bore, necessary perhaps but not exciting, central to the field, or of wide interest. That has changed, although resistance to ‘theory’ remains a feature of some university departments. I believe history can best be described in terms of what it is that historians do, a set of social practices that are inevitably subject to a wide range of imperatives.
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