Making History Now and Then: Discoveries, Controversies and Explorations

'History makes plain the complexity and contingency of human affairs and the range and variety of human experience; it enjoins suspicion of simplistic analysis, simplistic explanation, and simplistic prescription; it teaches proportion, perspective, reflectiveness, breadth of view, tolerance of differing opinions, and thus a greater sense of self-knowledge.' This book brings together David Cannadine's most important reflections on how history has been written and made in Britain in the twentieth century. Empire, monarchy, parliament, the economy, culture, heritage and tradition: Cannadine casts his eye over some of the central topics of our age and their treatment by historians down the years, delivering rich insights into the nature and profession of history itself. Most of the essays included here were produced during his decade-long association with the Institute of Historical Research in London and they are framed by his inaugural and valedictory lectures there. The result is a remarkably coherent collection, which demonstrates yet again why Cannadine is one of the most thoughtful, original, incisive and readable historians of our time.

Table of Contents:
Preface Inaugural: Making History Now! Perspectives: One Hundred Years of Doing History in Britain Monarchy: Crowns and Contexts, Thrones and Dominations Parliament: Past History, Present History and Future History Economy: the Growth and Fluctuations of the Industrial Revolution Heritage: the Historic Environment in Historical Perspective Tradition: Inventing and Re-Inventing the 'Last Night of the Proms' Nation: British Politics, British History and British-ness Dominion: Britain's Imperial Past in Canada's Imperial Past Empire: Some Anglo-American Ironies and Challenges Recessional: Two Historians, the Sixties and Beyond Valedictory: Making History, Then? Appendix: On Reviewing and Being Reviewed

About the Author :
DAVID CANNADINE is the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Professor of British History at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, UK. Since 2005 he has been Chairman of the Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery. He is also a Trustee of the Kennedy Memorial Trust, the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum, and the Rothschild Archive, a Commissioner for English Heritage, a Member of the East of England Regional Committee for the National Trust and a member of the Advisory Committee of the Royal Mint. He is Vice-Chair of the Editorial Board of Past and Present, a member of the Editorial Board of the History of Parliament, and a judge for the Wolfson Prize for History. He has been a member of the Advisory Council of the National Archives, a member of the Archives Task Force and a Historical Advisor to the Cabinet War Rooms/Churchill Museum. He is also a regular broadcaster on television and radio in the United Kingdom.

Review :
'This excellent collection of addresses and articles ... is a heartfelt plea for a better appreciation of history and historians, couched in Cannadine's customarily accessible style. There are jokes and witty asides, but the underlying message is serious... This book is a tribute to the great breadth of Cannadine's interests. There are chapters on Sir Malcolm Sargent starting the flag-waving tradition of the Last Night of the Proms; the place of Britain in Canada's imperial past; the birth of the heritage 'industry'; the changing analyses of the Industrial Revolution; the career of the maverick Thirties MP Sir Josiah Wedgwood, and very much more.' -Andrew Roberts, The Daily Mail 'Cannadine is a master weaver between the thens and nows of history. These essays show he is - in the best sense - a historian at the height of his powers.' - Gordon Marsden, History Today 'These essays confound any argument that British historical writing is moribund. Cannadine is far more than a lofty surveyor of many of the debates he discusses. As one of our most productive historians, both before and during his directorship, he has been an active participant with his work on class, the invention of tradition, the aristocracy and, with 2001's Ornamentalism, a riposte to Edward Said's Orientalism. He has a sure touch in detecting a subject that casts light on contemporary issues, hopes and fears.' - A.W.Purdue, Times Higher Education 'The writing has all the clarity, and the argument all the precision, that can be expected of a foremost practitioner of the historical art.' - Leslie Mitchell, Literary Review