Western Historical Thinking: an Intercultural Debate.(Book Review)

Publication: CLIO

Publication Date: 22-JUN-03

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COPYRIGHT 2003 Indiana University, Purdue University of Fort Wayne

Western Historical Thinking: An Intercultural Debate. Edited by Jorn Rusen. New York: Berghahn Books, 2002. xiii + 206 pages.

This collection of essays begins a series--"Making Sense of History"--that has its origin in conferences held at Bielefeld in 1994 and 1995. Western Historical Thinking: An Intellectual Debate was designed by editor Jorn Rusen to introduce a form of cultural studies that takes the very term "culture" seriously again. The book is constructed around an opening statement describing "Western historical thinking," followed by fifteen responses of various lengths and perspectives. One might expect from this plan a work that is disjointed, self contradictory, unbalanced, and inconclusive. This book is all of those things. It is also, however, a remarkably stimulating production, full of insights and observations that cannot fail to inform and illuminate. Although it would be an ideal text for the graduate seminar, it will prove valuable to anyone interested in the uses of the past.

Peter Burke's description of Western historical thinking in ten theses starts the discussion. Taking the West to begin with the Greeks,...

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