Category Archives: History

A Network Framework of Cultural History

The emergent processes driving cultural history are a product of complex interactions among large numbers of individuals, determined by difficult-to-quantify historical conditions. To characterize these processes, we have reconstructed aggregate intellectual mobility over two millennia through the birth and death … Continue reading

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History, Culture and Cognition – A dynamic model of Social Memory

The term social memory refers to the dynamic interplay between history, culture and cognition. At the level of the individual, three sources of knowledge: history, collective memory and individual experience combine to create a subjective view of historical reality, a … Continue reading

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Zygmunt Bauman’s Warning From History

But we cannot simply memorialize without asking difficult and searching questions about the contemporary moment. Are there, for instance, aspects of contemporary global society that make it possible to think and act in ways that render specific populations disposable? Such … Continue reading

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A History of the World in 100 objects

A 100 part series by Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, exploring world history from two million years ago to the present. Discover the 100 objects featured in the Radio 4 series; listen to the programmes online and download … Continue reading

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Class Rules: Utopia On Hold

History is written by the victors. They define what counts as history, what is remembered and what is forgotten, what is important and what is not and, most crucially, what is usable for informing the relationship of the present with … Continue reading

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A Brief History of Education

When we see that children everywhere are required by law to go to school, that almost all schools are structured in the same way, and that our society goes to a great deal of trouble and expense to provide such … Continue reading

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A People’s History of the United States – History from below

Howard Zinn, an active participant in the Civil Rights movement, his best-selling A People’s History of the United States spawned a new field of historical study: People’s Histories. This approach countered the traditional triumphalist examination of “history as written by … Continue reading

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