Leading historian Lynn Hunt rethinks why history matters in today’s global world and how it should be written. George Orwell wrote that “history is written by the winners.” Even if that seems a bit too cut-and-dried, we can say that history is always written from a viewpoint but that viewpoints change, sometimes radically. The history of workers, women, and minorities challenged the once-unquestioned dominance of the tales of great leaders and military victories. Then, cultural studies―including feminism and queer studies―brought fresh perspectives, but those too have run their course.With globalization emerging as a major economic, cultural, and political force, Lynn Hunt examines whether it can reinvigorate the telling of history. She hopes that scholars from East and West can collaborate in new ways and write wider-ranging works.At the same time, Hunt argues that we could better understand the effects of globalization in the past if we knew more about how individuals felt about the changes they were experiencing. She proposes a sweeping reevaluation of individuals’ active role and their place in society as the keys to understanding the way people and ideas interact. She also reveals how surprising new perspectives on society and the self―from environmental history, the history of human-animal interactions, and even neuroscience―offer promising new ways of thinking about the meaning and purpose of history in our time.

Using a wide range of artistic, iconographic, literary and historical sources, Lynn Hunt undertakes a Freudian influenced analysis of the French Revolution to examine the breakdown of patriarchal model of authority.

Product Description: Book by Hunt, Lynn, Martin, Thomas R., Rosenwein, Barbara H., Smith, Bonnie G., Lualdi, Katharine J.

A team of renowned scholar-teachers created The Making of the West to address three of the biggest challenges teachers of western civilization face — demonstrating how the West has been an evolving entity shaped by global influences; conveying the dynamic interaction of social, political, cultural, and economic history in shaping events over time; and revealing the historical roots of developments in today’s world. Through a ground-breaking chronological synthesis, the narrative deftly weaves together the main events, people, and themes of a specific time, thus providing a balanced, easy-to-follow story line. New aids to guide student reading and enhancements to the book’s organization bring the essence of western history to the fore in the most accessible edition yet.

Product Description: Students of Western civilization need more than facts. They need to understand the cross-cultural, global exchanges that shaped Western history; to be able to draw connections between the social, cultural, political, economic, and intellectual happenings in a given era; and to see the West not as a fixed region, but a living, evolving construct...read more