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History Study & Teaching

Theorizing Historical Consciousness

edited by Peter Seixas

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Sep 2004
Category
Study & Teaching, Historiography, History & Theory
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802087133
    Publish Date
    Oct 2004
    List Price
    $72.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780802094575
    Publish Date
    Apr 2006
    List Price
    $49.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442682610
    Publish Date
    Sep 2004
    List Price
    $93.00

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Description

Our understanding of the past shapes our sense of the present and the future: this is historical consciousness. While academic history, public history, and the study of collective memory are thriving enterprises, there has been only sparse investigation of historical consciousness itself, in a way that relates it to the policy questions it raises in the present. With Theorizing Historical Consciousness, Peter Seixas has brought together a diverse group of international scholars to address the problem of historical consciousness from the disciplinary perspectives of history, historiography, philosophy, collective memory, psychology, and history education.

Historical consciousness has serious implications for international relations, reparations claims, fiscal initiatives, immigration, and indeed, almost every contentious arena of public policy, collective identity, and personal experience. Current policy debates are laced with mutually incompatible historical analogies, and identity politics generate conflicting historical accounts. Never has the idea of a straightforward 'one history that fits all' been less workable. Theorizing Historical Consciousness sets various theoretical approaches to the study of historical consciousness side-by-side, enabling us to chart the future study of how people understand the past.

About the author

Peter Seixas is the director of the Centre for the Study of Historical Consciousness and a professor and Canada Research Chair in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia.

Peter Seixas' profile page

Editorial Reviews

'I do not hesitate nominating Theorizing Historical Consciousness as the most rewarding book about history education since the early 1990s.'

J. Cirriculum Studies, 2005, Vol. 37, No. 6